Janet Valade

PHP and MySQL For Dummies - 2nd Edition - Janet Valade - 2004.

   Think of this book as your friendly guide to building a Web database application. This book is designed as a reference, not as a tutorial, so you don’t have to read this book from cover to cover, unless you want to. You can start reading at any point in the book - in Chapter 1, Chapter 9, wherever. I divide the task of building a Web database application into manageable chunks of information, so check out the table of contents and locate the topic that you’re interested in. If you need to know information from another chapter to understand the chapter you’re reading, I reference that chapter number.

Here’s a sample of the topics that I discuss in this book:
- Building and using a MySQL database
- Adding PHP to HTML files
- Using the features of the PHP language
- Using HTML forms to collect information from users
- Showing information from a database in a Web page
- Storing information in a database

PHP5 For Dummies - Janet Valade - 2004.

   Think of this book as a friendly introduction to programming in PHP. This book is both an introduction to programming and an introduction to PHP. The book starts with the basics of PHP, including how to tell whether you need to install it. (Full installation instructions are included in Appendix A.) The book describes the basic features of PHP with examples of their use. If you have experience with programming, you can probably just skim this section, but if you don’t, all the programming basics are here.  
   The book goes on to describe the most common uses of PHP. It shows how to write scripts for Web sites, file manipulation, databases, and other common tasks. It provides techniques and shortcuts and warns against common errors. Both beginners and experienced programmers can write useful scripts for many common applications in a very short time by using the information in the application section (Part IV) of the book.