From the Preface:

Any attempt to gauge the popularity of PHP on the internet results in statistics which prove difficult for the human mind to comprehend. As of April 2007 there are an estimated 20 million unique web domains actively using PHP to generate and deliver content. While it is hard to conceptualize 20 million web servers using PHP, it is not hard to infer from this number that PHP has taken the web design and development community by storm since humble beginnings in 1995.

The purpose of this book is bring the power and ease of use of PHP to anyone with a desire to learn PHP, and in doing so, join the tens of thousands of web developers who have already discovered the flexibility and productivity that comes with using PHP.

The book is intended to cover all aspects of PHP. It begins by covering the history of PHP before providing a high level overview of how PHP works and why it is so useful to web developers. It then moves on to cover each area of PHP in detail, from the basics of the scripting language through to object oriented programming, file and filesystem handling and MySQL and SQLite database access. In addition, chapters are also provided covering the creation and handling of HTML based forms and maintaining state using cookies and PHP sessions. All topics are accompanied by extensive real world examples intended to bring theory to life.

Intended Audience:

It is anticipated that the typical reader already has some web based experience at least in terms of understanding the concepts of a web server and creating HTML based content. While prior programming and scripting experience will be beneficial to the reader, this book is designed such that even the non-programmer can quickly get up to speed with PHP.