Welcome to the companion Web pages for the fourth edition of the book PHP for the Web: Visual QuickStart Guide, written by Larry Ullman and published by Peachpit Press. This page is specifically for the book’s fourth edition, published in March 2011 (ISBN 0-321-73345-2). The first edition was published in April 2001 (ISBN 0-201-72787-0). If you are using the first edition of the book, you should go to that page. The second edition was published in February 2004 (ISBN 0-321-24565-2). If you are using the second edition of the book, you should go to that page. The third edition was published in December 2008 (ISBN 0-321-44249-0). If you are using the third edition of the book, you should go to that page.
This is the fourth edition of my first book: a beginner’s guide to the PHP programming language. This book was written for the average computer user wanting to begin developing dynamic Web sites. No prior programming experience is assumed, although you should already be familiar with the basics of HTML. The focus of the book is the PHP language itself, but two chapters introduce MySQL and SQL, in order to start using a database backend.
With the fourth edition of the book, I started by fixing any minor problems and updating the code for the latest version of PHP. New in this edition is a “Review and Pursue” section at the end of
each chapter. The review prompts revisit the chapter’s key points. The pursue prompts are specific recommendations for how to apply what you just learned on your own. As with any of the book’s material, you can turn to the book’s supporting forum for help or feedback on the “Review and Pursue” section.
Also new in this edition is an added chapter, called “Putting It All Together.” The chapter demonstrates how to use everything covered in the book to assemble a mini-Web application, with authentication and full CRUD (Create, Retrieve, Update, and Delete) functionality.
I thank you for your interest in my work. If you do decide to purchase the book, I hope it meets your expectations.
Beside the couple of pages dedicated to this edition of this book, there’s plenty of other content on LarryUllman.com that you might be interested in. Use the “Post Categories” links above to browse by general topic.
You can download the code for the book using the link below. If you have any questions or problems, I’d recommend using the book’s corresponding support forum, where you’ll get the fastest answer.
Downloads
Every script in the text is available here to be downloaded. Some things you should know:
- Although these scripts are named or numbered as they are in the book, they do include any updates and changes as warranted by errors that were found after publication. Thus, if you are having problems with a particular script, download the most current version here or check the errata section.
- The URLs as referenced in the book (e.g. http://www.DMCinsights.com/php/hello.php) are not available for execution online.
- These are the scripts for the FOURTH EDITION of the book. If you are using a different edition, click the appropriate link above to find the correct page.
- These scripts have been formatted with line breaks that will work on most systems running most text editors. If you have difficulty opening a script, try:
- adjusting the way your text editor treats text files
- using a different text editor, if possible
- posting a message to the online forum, asking for help
Complete Set of Scripts
phpvqs4_scripts.zip (86 KB, last modified 03/03/2012)