It is pretty good. Especially for the people who worked a little bit on php but not an expert yet. (That is me.)

This book is a good reference for people who already have a fair amount of programming knowledge. You don't need to necessarily know PHP since it's pretty similar to all the other languages out there. You should however have an idea of how a data driven website works.

O'Rielly is a name I trust, and often look to for technical manuals. Their cookbooks and pocket guides are particularly sweet.


I am constantly pulling this book for snippets of code. Converting dates all around, array manipulation all the mundane but oh-so-common choirs.

I have already added an extensive collections of methods and classes based on the book's code. With my newly found admiration of Object-Oriented design and development I am able to reuse the code I create once again and again.

If you are new to Object Oriented coding, check out
Object-Oriented PHP: Concepts, Techniques, and Code

Together you can build powerful classes of date or array methods to handle anything you'll come across, and anything new only makes them better!

Each recipe states a Problem, gives a Solution, adds Discussion to help you understand the "why" behind the "what", and tosses in a "See Also" section if you need more info. There are 26 chapters of problem-solving recipes that will not only get you over the current hurdle but provide for learning in quick bits. Take a couple minutes, try something that interests you, and add it to your toolbox.

Awesome book!

This book is not for someone who doesn't know programming. If you haven't coded at all in your life and don't basic PHP syntax you need a different book.

It also isn't a full solution for your site. You can't by this book and expect it to provide a complete solution for your programming needs.

What is it. It is a collection of discrete coding examples of how to program. It's not a book of syntax. It is a book of techniques that you can learn and then use as needed on your own projects.

I haven't read this book from end to end but when I recently had my first XML project it was useful to learn my different options on how to approach the project. Next I will be working on improving security. Again it has good examples that I can use and MODIFY for my own needs.

I'm coming to PHP with a strong background in Perl and this book is perfect for me. In my mind, I know what I'd do in Perl to handle a given situation. With PHP Cookbook, all I need do is turn to the table of contents, find the section I need, and there's the solution. The code is well written and the descriptions very useful.

This review is for the 2nd edition and I got a copy from Amazon for a really good price. The time it already saved me from having to 'think' was more than worth the price. I did download the source from O'Reilly. It a very good source of usable working code that you can just 'cut and paste', and you might find yourself learning something here.That is what it was intended to be.

I find most technical books impossible to read from front to back. I typically just use them as reference books. Unfortuanately most techbooks aren't organized with this in mind. That's why I love the cookbook series. They tend to contain far more example code then typical programming books and are ideal reference books. The PHP Cookbook is an excellent resouce for PHP novices and experts alike. PHP Cookbook (2nd Edition) is exactly what you would expect from a O'Reilly's cookbook. Everyone reguardless of skill level will feel they hit the jackpot with this book because it has tons of sample code and examples that explain how to do just about anything imaginable in PHP.

The chapters are organized according to topic and each subsection is basicly a short how-to comprised of a problem, solution and disscussion section that explains the solution in detail. Topics include XML, form handling, database interaction, session management and a lot more. I find all O'Reilly's cookbooks to be extremely useful and PHP Cookbook is ceartainly the most useful PHP book I own.

This is my first O'Reilly book in the "Cookbook" series. At first I thought this book would probably contain the code and instructions for building a couple of web applications such as a shopping cart or a blog engine. This isn't that book. Rather it provides the reader with code snippets that can be used as building blocks for all kinds of applications. If I had to describe this book in one sentence I would say it is as if the author took down all the "Hmm..., I wonder how that is done?" questions and created an answer key.

One thing I like about this book is that the authors don't waste the first few chapters trying to teach or give an overview of the language. Instead they hop right into the usage of the language that relates to real world stuff.

So here is a brief overview. The book covers PHP 5 and goes over many of the new and improved features. The first six chapters provide recipes for more basic subjects (strings, numbers, dates & times, arrays, variables, and functions. Again, this isn't an intro to PHP, that is another book such as Programming PHP from O'Reilly. This is that book you reach for once you have moved from PHP basics and are ready to build some real world stuff.

By chapter seven the authors are discussing classes and objects. I like using classes when coding in C++, so this is a good chapter for those who like OOP. The next nine chapters go over web stuff starting out with basic things like cookies, forms, and databases. Then the authors go into more advanced areas like session management, XML, automation and web services (REST, SOAP, Mail, FTP, LDAP, and DNS to name a few).

The next chapter [17] is on the topic of graphics. This is a cool chapter if you like to create dynamic images. Things like creating a button image on the fly, or generating charts. Graphics are great to have a knowledge of because everyone likes graphical presentation of data and this chapter can help you get there.

Chapter 18 is on security and encryption which I found rather helpful. No one wants there web application to be the link that allows data to be compromised, and this chapter deals with many of those problem areas. Chapter 19 covers localization, chapter 20 is on debugging and testing. The debugging section does a great job of getting a person setup with the tools they need to properly debug an application including creating your own exception class. This is an outstanding chapter that every programmer can appreciate since every application needs debugging.

The remaining chapters cover performance tuning, regular expressions, files, directories, command line PHP, PERL and PECL. Being a Perl guy I found it interesting to see how the authors utilized regular expressions in PHP. And the chapter on command-line PHP was outstanding; I thought the recipe for creating a PHP command shell was pretty cool.

CONCLUSION
--
This book is like having the answer key to most of the random questions a person comes up with when writing code. I found this book to be very useful, it will be one of those references that I keep close, and gets very little shelf time. It is a solid book. It is hard to say what parts I liked best because this is one of those books that you like and must have, but then as time goes on and you use it more and more its value grows. This is an excellent book and I would strongly recommend it the PHP users that want to move to the next level.

This is basically an excellent book. A lot of very useful stuff. Unlike the online PHP manual, it is on this technology called a book. This comes in handy on say a NYC subway train, where you want to brush up on some PHP, or find the solution for something you are working on.

One major warning though: all the database stuff (about 20-30 percent of the book) depends on the PEAR DB class. That is a great thing to use as are many of the PEAR classes. But there is certainly great PHP code that doesn't rely on PEAR DB.

Besides the db stuff the book has great examples with strings, numbers, I/O (files and directories), dates, etc. And being that I used to be a Reptile Biologist - you got to love that Iguana. If nothing else, just buy it for the cover.

There is no comparison between Wrox and O'Reilly books! O'Reilly wins hands-down!

This 2nd edition of the PHP Cookbook offers real, useful, insightful information. The content is not "just recipes," but a consise approach to everyday problem solving using PHP. The organization of the book exposes this problem solving as a series of recipes that answer particular problem-domain questions. The diversity of the problem-domains accounted for in this text are amazing! If it is web or Internet related, this book probably has an answer for your most demanding PHP needs.

In the fine tradition of O'Reilly books, this text is very well presented, exceptionally well edited and organized in a manner that makes sense to the reader. It is not filled with fluff or hyperbole designed to add page count the way the thick volumes at Wrox seem to do. If you need every little thought spelled out for you, maybe you should buy a "PHP for Dummies" book. Otherwise, you can't go wrong with this excellent, well presented book that truly is "Solutions and Examples for PHP Programmers."

Web developers might already know PHP, but this updated second edition of a classic still remains an important desk reference to solving common problems and coding obstacles. PHP is used on millions of web sites today, so its depth and applications hold many possibilities for confusion as well as opportunities for optimization choices. PHP COOKBOOK covers all angles, from processing XML and obtaining solutions to common applications problems to working with JavaScript interactions. Any professional PHP user needs this.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

(My review refers to the 2003 edition).

This book has loads of information about stuff you do on a normal basis with PHP, including XML parsing, form processing, string and array manipulation, etc. I think the book is well written and indexed with good examples, but I think you won't get much more information than the PHP user manual.

In my opinion PHP has better free user documentation than all the other languages I use on a regular basis (Java, Ruby and PERL). You can download their user manual and PEAR manual in a whole bunch of formats, including CHM, which gives you the ability to browse it like any other Windows help file (which gives you the ability to search). Most of the points in this book are covered in the same depth in the PHP user manual and you don't have to pay for it.

You need a solution to a problem? This book will give you the answer. This is a great reference book that helped me a lot and I think that every PHP programmer should own. This book is the next best thing to searching Google for PHP answers where you can find a wealth of information. The examples are very useful and the flow of the book is perfect. When I bought this book it was expensive but it was worth every single penny.

You need to know the basics of PHP coding before this book is useful. But if you know at least the basics you are going to find this book to be your best PHP teacher.