Upgrading to PHP 5

Description:

If you're using PHP 4, then chances are good that an upgrade to PHP 5 is in your future. The more you've heard about the exciting new features in PHP 5, the sooner that upgrade is probably going to be. Although an in-depth, soup-to-nuts reference guide to the language is good to have on hand, it's not the book an experienced PHP programmer needs to get started with the latest release. What you need is a lean and focused guide that answers your most pressing questions: what's new with the technology, what's different, and how do I make the best use of it? In other words, you need a copy of Upgrading to PHP 5.

This book is targeted toward PHP developers who are already familiar with PHP 4. Rather than serve as a definitive guide to the entire language, the book zeroes in on PHP 5's new features, and covers these features definitively. You'll find a concise appraisal of the differences between PHP 4 and PHP 5, a detailed look at what's new in this latest version, and you'll see how PHP 5 improves on PHP 4 code. See PHP 4 and PHP 5 code side-by-side, to learn how the new features make it easier to solve common PHP problems. Each new feature is shown in code, helping you understand why it's there, when to use it, and how it's better than PHP 4. Short, sample programs are included throughout the book.

Topics covered in Upgrading to PHP 5 include:

• The new set of robust object-oriented programming features
  
• An improved MySQL extension, supporting MySQL 4.1, prepared statements, and bound parameters
  
• Completely rewritten support for XML: DOM, XSLT, SAX, and SimpleXML
  
• Easy web services with SOAP
  
• SQLite, an embedded database library bundled with PHP 5
  
• Cleaner error handling with exceptions
  
• Other new language features, such as iterators, streams, and more.

Upgrading to PHP 5 won't make you wade through information you've covered before. Written by Adam Trachtenberg, coauthor of the popular PHP Cookbook, this book will take you straight into the heart of all that's new in PHP 5. By the time you've finished, you'll know PHP 5 in practice as well as in theory.

 

Table of Contents:

Preface

1. Introduction

     Why PHP 5?

     What's New in PHP 5?

     Installing and Configuring PHP 5

2. Object-Oriented Programming

     What Is Object-Oriented Programming?

     Memory Management

     Basic Classes

     Class Intermediates

     Inheritance

     Magical Methods

3. MySQL

     Installing and Configuring

     Procedural Interface

     Before and After: Connecting to the Database Server

     Object-Oriented Interface

     Before and After: Querying and Retrieving Data with Prepared Statements

     Before and After: Subselects

     Transactions

     Before and After: Making Multiple Queries

     Securing Connections with SSL

     Porting Code and Migrating Databases

4. SQLite

     SQLite Basics

     Alternate SQLite Result Types

     Object-Oriented Interface

     Indexes, Error Handling, and In-Memory Tables

     Transactions

     User-Defined Functions

5. XML

     XML Extensions in PHP 5

     Installing XML and XSLT Support

     DOM

     SimpleXML

     Converting Between SimpleXML and DOM Objects

     Before and After: Reading XML into a Tree

     Before and After: Searching XML with XPath

     Reading XML as Events with SAX

     Before and After: Creating New XML Documents

     Before and After: Transforming XML with XSLT

     Validating Against a Schema

6. Iterators and SPL

     Before and After: Using Iterators

     Implementing the Iterator Interface

     MySQL Query Iterator

     Chaining Iterators

     SimpleXML Iterator

     Before and After: Recursive Directory Iteration

     Implementing the RecursiveIterator Interface

     Array and Object Property Iteration

     Redefining Class Iteration

     Iterator and SPL Classes and Interfaces

7. Error Handling and Debugging

     Before and After: Handling Errors

     The Benefits of Exceptions

     System Exceptions

     The Exception Class

     User Exceptions

     Setting a Custom Exception Handler

     Processing Errors with a Custom Handler

     Debugging Functions

8. Streams, Wrappers, and Filters

     Using the Streams API

     Wrapper Overview

     Wrapper Details

     Creating Wrappers

     Filtering Streams

     Creating Filters

9. Other Extensions

     SOAP

     Tidy

     Reflection

10. PHP 5 in Action

     Defining Your Database Schema

     The Person Class

     The addressBook Class

     The Template Class

     Assembling the Application

     Wrap-Up and Future Directions

A. Introduction to XML

B. Additional New Features and Minor Changes

C. Installing PHP 5 Alongside PHP 4

Index