PHP books

Easy, Powerful Code Security Techniques for Every PHP Developer

Hackers specifically target PHP Web applications. Why? Because they know many of these apps are written by programmers with little or no experience or training in software security. Don’t be victimized. Securing PHP Web Applications will help you master the specific techniques, skills, and best practices you need to write rock-solid PHP code and harden the PHP software you’re already using.

Drawing on more than fifteen years of experience in Web development, security, and training, Tricia and William Ballad show how security flaws can find their way into PHP code, and they identify the most common security mistakes made by PHP developers. The authors present practical, specific solutions–techniques that are surprisingly easy to understand and use, no matter what level of PHP programming expertise you have.

Securing PHP Web Applications covers the most important aspects of PHP code security, from error handling and buffer overflows to input validation and filesystem access. The authors explode the myths that discourage PHP programmers from attempting to secure their code and teach you how to instinctively write more secure code without compromising your software’s performance or your own productivity.

Coverage includes

• Designing secure applications from the very beginning–and plugging holes in applications you can’t rewrite from scratch
• Defending against session hijacking, fixation, and poisoning attacks that PHP can’t resist on its own
• Securing the servers your PHP code runs on, including specific guidance for Apache, MySQL, IIS/SQL Server, and more
• Enforcing strict authentication and making the most of encryption
• Preventing dangerous cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks
• Systematically testing yourapplications for security, including detailed discussions of exploit testing and PHP test automation
• Addressing known vulnerabilities in the third-party applications you’re already running

Tricia and William Ballad demystify PHP security by presenting realistic scenarios and code examples, practical checklists, detailed visuals, and more. Whether you write Web applications professionally or casually, or simply use someone else’s PHP scripts, you need this book–and you need it now, before the hackers find you!

Instead of starting at "Hello World," Wicked Cool PHP assumes that you're familiar with the language and jumps right into the good stuff. After you learn the FAQs of life-the most commonly wished for PHP scripts-you'll work your way through smart configuration options and the art of forms, all the way through to complex database-backed scripts.

Wicked Cool PHP contains a wide variety of scripts to process credit cards, check the validity of email addresses, template HTML, and serve dynamic images and text. The 76 easily implemented scripts will also teach you how to:

Send and receive email notifications Track your visitors' behavior with cookies and sessions Override PHP's default settings Manipulate dates, images, and text on the fly Harness SOAP and other web services Create an online poll, ecard delivery system, and blog

But it's not all fun and games: Security is a big concern when programming any web application. So you'll learn how to encrypt your confidential data, safeguard your passwords, and prevent common cross-site-scripting attacks. And you'll learn how to customize all of the scripts to fit your own needs.

Dynamic Web content doesn't have to be difficult. Learn the secrets of the craft from two experienced PHP developers with Wicked Cool PHP.

This book is a fast-paced tutorial focusing on creating a Social Networking framework through an ongoing case study. It presents a lot of real-world code, with comprehensive explanation and discussion. With each chapter, the Social Networking framework is extended, with more functionality being added as we progress through the book. This book is primarily aimed at PHP developers, but is suitable for any web developers looking to expand their knowledge and understanding of Social Networking concepts. Intermediate knowledge of PHP and object-oriented programming is assumed, along with a basic knowledge of MySQL.

If you are a web programmer, you need to know modern PHP. This book presents with many new areas in which PHP plays a large role. If you want to write a mobile application using geo-location data, Pro PHP Programming will show you how. Additionally, if you need to make sure that you can write a multilingual indexing application using Sphinx, this book will help you avoid the pitfalls.
Of course, Pro PHP Programming gives a thorough survey of PHP post-5.3. You'll begin by working through an informative survey and clear guide to object-oriented PHP. Then, you'll be set for the core of the book on modern PHP applications. Now, you'll be able to start with the chapter on PHP for mobile programming and move on to sampling social media applications. You'll also be guided through new PHP programming language features like closures and namespaces.
Pro PHP Programming deals with filtering data from users and databases next, so you'll be well prepared for relational and NoSQL databases. Of course, you can also learn about data retrieval from other sources, like OCR libraries or websites. Then the question of how to format and present data arises, and in Pro PHP Programming, you'll find solutions via JSON, AJAX and XML.

What you’ll learn

• PHP 5.3 object-oriented programming and new PHP features
• Writing programs talking to SQL-based and NoSQL-based databases alike
• Using modern PHP programmer's tools
• Writing social media applications
• Investigating NoSQL datastores
• Writing PHP programs for a cloud ecology

Who this book is for

This book is for intermediate and advanced PHP programmers, as well as programmers coming from other languages such as Python, Perl, C/C++. It can also be utilized by programmers with knowledge of a previous PHP version who want to return to PHP.

Table of Contents

1. Object Orientation
2. Exceptions and References
3. Mobile PHP
4. Social Media
5. Cutting Edge
6. Form Design and Management
7. Database Interaction I
8. Database Interaction II
9. Database Interaction III
10. Libraries
11. Security
12. Agile Development with Zend Studio for Eclipse, Bugzilla, Mylyn, and Subversion
13. Refactoring, Unit Testing, and Continuous Intergration
14. XML
15. JSON and AJAX
16. Conclusions
17. Regular Expressions

Are you one of those people who think there isn't anything substantial that you can do in only 10 minutes? Think again. Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 10 Minutes is a no-fluff, just-the-answers guide to building dynamic websites using PHP. Broken into 10 minute lessons, you will gain a rapid working knowledge of PHP 5 and be able to immediately put that knowledge to use in practical applications. Who ever would have thought there was so much you could do in just 10 minutes!

Beginning PHP and MySQL E-Commerce: From Novice to Professional, Second Edition is an update to the popular book showing readers how to create e-commerce websites using two of the world's most popular technologies: the PHP scripting language and MySQL database.

In addition to guiding readers through the creation of a complete, working website using sound enterprise development techniques, the authors take care to provide readers with a variety of alternative implementation solutions: for instance readers are shown how to accept payments from both PayPal and credit cards. The book has also been updated to reflect the latest development trends, showing readers how to upgrade their shopping cart using Ajax, integrate with Amazon's Web services, and encourage customer feedback through cutting-edge interactive features.

60 simple but incredibly effective recipes for Ajaxification of web 2.0 sites.

• Learn how to develop and deploy iPhone web and native apps.
• Optimize the performance of Ajax applications.
• Build dynamic websites with faster response from the server using the asynchronous call feature of PHP Ajax.
• Using Ajax allows quick and efficient access of data from the server, thus precluding a total web page refresh.
• Leverage the power of PHP Ajax using practical recipes with example codes.

In Detail

Ajax is the necessary paradigm in Web 2.0 sites. Most of the Web 2.0 sites are built with PHP and Ajax. Extending AJAX is about delivering front-end service for accessing back-end services in PHP in a quick and easy manner. With this book in hand, you will learn how to use the necessary tools for Ajaxification of websites and iPhones.

PHP AJAX cookbook will teach you how to use the combination of PHP AJAX as a powerful platform for websites or web applications. Using AJAX for Communication with Server leads to faster response with PHP at the back-end services. The combination of AJAX PHP has many features such as speeding up the user experience, giving your web client much quicker response time and letting the client browser retrieve data from the server without having to refresh the whole page. You will learn the nuances of optimization and debugging Ajax applications. Further, you will learn how to program Ajax on iPhone devices.

This book will teach you popular selector-based JavaScript followed by important concepts on debugging, optimization and best practices. There is a collection of recipes focused on creating basic utilities such as validating form using Ajax and creating a five star rating system. As jQuery is quite popular, useful tools and jQuery plugins like Ajax tooltips, tab navigation, autocomplete, shopping cart, and Ajax chat are covered subsequently. By the end of chapter 7 you will learn to visually speed up website responsiveness to building SEO-friendly Ajax websites. Also get to know about all popular Ajax webservices and APIs like Twitter, Facebook and Google Maps which are covered in Ajax Mashups. Finally, step-by-step recipes are presented to build iPhone apps using basic libraries and everyday useful Ajax tools.

Build rich interactive web 2.0 sites with rich standards and Mashups around PHP Ajax.

What you will learn from this book

• Understand Basic form validation and form handling tools
• Learn Debugging and troubleshooting techniques to make your site perform even quicker
• Integrate Web 2.0 APIs for Flickr, Picasa, Facebook and Twitter
• Build chat application using Comet technology
• Write optimized code using Ajax asynchronous calls to improve website responsiveness
• Implement best practices to build SEO-friendly websites
• Become a skilled iPhone app developer using Ajax

Approach

This book contains a collection of recipes with step-by-step directions to build SEO-friendly websites using standard Ajax tools. Each recipe contains behind-the-scene explanations to PHP Ajax questions.

Who this book is written for

This book is an ideal resource for people who like to add Ajax features to websites and who prefer standards and best practices for building SEO-friendly websites. As the book covers advanced topics, readers need to be aware of basic PHP, JavaScript and XML features.

This update to a Wrox bestseller dives in and guides the reader through the entire process of creating dynamic, data-driven sites using the open source "AMP" model: Apache Web server, the MySQL database system, and the PHP scripting language. The team of expert authors covers PHP scripting, database management, security, integration, and e-commerce functions and comes complete with a useful syntax reference.

• Showcases three fully functional Web site examples, with implementations for both Windows and Linux, that readers can incorporate into their own projects
• Updates include a new chapter on PHP5 features and functions, a new example Web site application, and updates to PHP5 throughout the text

Think of all the things you could do in 24 hours. Go sightseeing. Read a book. Learn PHP. Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours is a unique learning tool that is divided into 24 one-hour lessons over five sections. Starting with the basics, you will discover the fundamentals of PHP and how to apply that knowledge to create dynamic websites with forms, cookies and authentication functions. You will also find out how to access databases, as well as how to integrate system components, e-mail, LDAP, network sockets and more. A support website includes access to source code, PHP updates, errata and links to other relevant websites. Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours is a quick and easy way to learn how to create interactive websites for your end user.

A practical and concise book that teaches XML from the ground up. This tutorial style presents various XML methodologies and techniques in an easy to understand way, building a basis for further exploration.

XML is essentially an enabling technology, dry and boring on its own. As a result, most books on the market are dry, and academic in nature teaching theory rather than practice. This book actually teaches practical, real-world applications of XML, using the very latest version of PHP (PHP 5) as the base language .

No Nonsense XML Web Development with PHP explains how XML can be put to use in real-world projects. The book also covers buzz topics such as RSS and Web Services.

From the Publisher

If ever there were a candidate for "Most Hyped Technology' it would be Extensible Markup Language (XML). 'No Nonsense XML Web Development With PHP' cuts through the hype and shows you how to get the most of this powerful, multifaceted technology.

No Nonsense XML Web Development With PHP dispenses with the theoretical possibilities of XML and presents real, practical uses of XML that you can apply to your existing Websites today. The book will teach you, step-by-step, exactly how to:

• Create a full-blown Content Management System (CMS) based on XML.
• Create a dynamic site map using XSLT.
• Generate XML feeds (including RSS) for your Website.
• Facilitate transfer of important information between disparate systems using XML-RPC
• Use the Document Object Model (DOM) to manipulate documents.
• Rapidly process XML using PHP 5.0's built-in SimpleXML functionality.

Unlike other dry, boring, theoretical writing on XML, this book doesn't cover the entire spectrum of XML technologies; it covers practical uses of XML that are useful to Web developers right now.
This book is designed to help you to get your feet (and perhaps your ankles, shins, and knees) wet with the topic of XML. You can instantly test out and apply the code examples provided in the book (and available for free download) to get a hands-on feel for the technology, and you'll gain the confidence to go out and build more.
The XML-powered content management system (CMS) that you'll build will be a complete, ready-to-use application. It draws on the author's experience of building XML-powered
Who Should Read This Book?

No-Nonsense XML Web Development With PHP is ideal for Web developers who want to discover what can be done using XML, whether they be experienced with PHP or relative newcomers. All that's needed to get started is a good understanding of HTML and some experience with PHP.

The book is written in the usual SitePoint style: it's clear and fun to read, with plenty of blocks of example code that you can apply immediately to your own Websites.

There's no need to re-type any of the code from the book. As always, all customers will receive instant download access to all the code and files used in the book so you can apply them immediately to your own projects.

What Slashdot.org Says...
"Kudos to the author for writing chapters on XML without sounding boring, redundant or too academic. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in developing PHP-driven Web sites that provide or consume Web services, work with XML data or generate XML for others to use."