Core PHP Programming

honestpuck writes "One of my key concerns when reviewing a good book is the pull between information density and a light, easily read style. I believe that as we get further along the learning curve we can sacrifice some readability for density -- we want more facts and less explanation." Read on for honestpuck's take on the third edition of Core PHP Programming to see how well it achieves that balance.

Core PHP Programming (3rd Edition)
author	Leon Atkinson with Zeev Juraski
pages	1041
publisher	Prentice Hall PTR
rating	9
reviewer	Tony Williams
ISBN	0130463469
summary	Good comprehensive guide for beginner to expert

The authors of Core PHP Programming have found a marvelous middle ground. Toward the beginning of the book they have a great deal of light, explanatory material as they cover the basics of PHP. As they move towards more advanced topics there is less explanation and a tighter packing of information. At the same time the book has a large number of small code examples throughout, making sure that you know how to use the functions under discussion.

This is the third edition and I must admit that I had not come across it in either the first or second editions, so I have no great way of comparing them in this review. It has certainly been revised to take into account the changes for PHP 5 and examining the table of contents for the second edition on Safari I can see the that the basic structure has remained the same while the book has grown about 300 pages. The addition of Zeev Suraski as co-author can only be to the benefit of the quality of the information, particularly regarding PHP 5.

The book starts with the absolute rock bottom of PHP, the basic data types and operators through to efficiency, debugging and design patterns. Along the way it covers almost all aspects of PHP 5 with a readable reference style. The 'Core' in the title of this book is a key to understanding it. If you're looking for a book with all the code required to handle session management, or user logins and security (to mention two possibilities) then this isn't the book for you. If, however, you are after a book that more than adequately explains the power and nuances of PHP and programming in the language then this is a marvelous volume.

It's broken up into 5 sections: "Programming PHP," which covers the basics of data, control flow and I/O; "Functional Reference," which is 600 odd pages broken up into 12 chapters that seems to cover every PHP function (a check of three sub chapters showed every function mentioned on the topic at PHP.net was also in the book) and does it well with good explanation and code examples; "Algorithms," which details a number of methods of performing routine tasks such as sorting, parsing and generating graphics; and "Software Engineering," devoted to design, efficiency and design patterns; and finally, there are a seven excellent appendices.

Taken as a whole it does a good job of covering the whole language and the ways of using it.

I can imagine it would make a good companion volume to my other favourite PHP volume, PHP and MySQL Web Development, which tends more towards recipes and leaves out the encyclopedic coverage of this book.

Leon Atkinson has a good page for the book that includes a link to download all the code and examples, a link to the Prentice Hall page for those wanting an example chapter or a look at the Table of Contents and some other reviews. His site also has a page for the inevitable errata, currently blank. While I did find only one typo (not in example code) I can't claim to have read every page or run all the code examples.

I'd recommend this volume to anyone who wanted a comprehensive guide to PHP 5. It is probably useful at almost all levels.

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You can purchase Core PHP Programming, 3rd Ed. from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

The online PHP documentation could be improved

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no general alphabetical function list, and even in the function categories the listings aren't always in alphabetic order.

Re:Needed?

[Matrix9180]

I have this book myself, and I can say that it puts the documentation in a much more readable form, and just a FYI, most of the online documentation has NOT been updated for PHP5. Think before you submit next time.

I gotta go with PHP CookBook

[bc90021]

No, I'm not selling, but here [oreilly.com] is a link at O'Reilly's website.

If you know PHP to a certain degree, this book is very useful, and presents real world examples. It is very up to date, and even covers things like PHP OOP and PEAR.

Namespaces

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had this book for awhile, and I do agree that it is on the whole a nice book -- being in its third reprint one has to expect that. However, the book doesn't really cover PHP 5 at all. None of the new extensions such as simplexml, sqlite are discussed (just the Zend Engine 2 stuff). On top of that, the ZE2 stuff is even outdated as it talks about things like Namespaces which were removed from PHP 5.

Re:The online PHP documentation could be improved

[Crewd]

You mean there isn't a page like this one?

http://php.net/quickref.php

Re:The online PHP documentation could be improved

[dark_panda]

I'd suggest taking a look at this page:

http://www.php.net/mirroring.php [php.net]

I've set up a mirror for internal use at work. Just run rsync in a cron job every week or month or whatever to keep things up to date.

J

Re:PHP books *are* needed, just not all of them

[mgkimsal2]

The developer cookbook, because of the 'recipe' approach (identify problem, discuss it, show solution).

There's an older NewRiders book by, argh, lost the name - blue/purplish spine, something like "Web Application Development with PHP". One of the first books I saw on PHP where they went into advanced concepts, and didn't treat the reader as if they knew no programming. You were walked through various business problems and shown how they were addressed, and IIRC chapters built on earlier chapters for continuity.

Some WROX are OK, but it's hit and miss.

Haven't read the new Schlossnagle book yet, but it looks good too (likely more internal, gutsy type stuff not just 'here's a variable' kind of thing).

HTH

Better Prices than Amazon & BN

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does everyone settle for these two?

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Amazon: $31.49 + shipping

BN: $35.99 + shipping

BN: $34.19 + shipping (for BN members)

For all of the Amazon-BN bigots, send me half of your savings, 'kay?

Re:The online PHP documentation could be improved

[SvendTofte]

Also, when you want the lowdown on a function, it's super easy to just enter

www.php.net/functionname

into your browser, and you're forwarded straight to the functions documentation, and usually also the local mirror. Sweet stuff.

Zeevs lastname is Suraski

[JoScherl]

Hi,

just asmall note: Zeevs lastname isn't Juraski, as said in the "Book info box" in the author field but it is Suraski.