Introduction to PHP Programming

Introduction to PHP

• History of PHP
• Comparison with dynamic content alternatives (Perl, CGI, ASP, JSP, Servlets , CGI, etc)
• PHP tools and set up (web browser/server, editor, libraries, etc)
• Create a basic PHP Script
• Opening and Closing tags
• PHP as a command line or batch language
• Taking user input (HTML forms)
• Self Referring Forms
• Selecting alternatives
• Use PHP to generate HTTP headers
• Generating HTTP redirects
• Pass PHP variables via the URL
• Debugging Tips
• Where to find PHP documentation

Taking User Input from Forms via PHP

• Creating forms with PHP
• Security Protection from Cross Site Scripting
• Using the form GET method
• Using the form POST method
• Obtaining data from forms through variables $_REQUEST, $_POST or $_GET ?
• Using hidden fields
• Secure Web Forms (HTTPS and SSL)
• Calling pages from themselves using forms
• Quoting HTML entities in user input

Variables and Expressions in PHP

• Identifiers
• Data Types (integers, floats, strings and booleans)
• Type juggling
• Text constants, interpolation (strings, arrays, objects, functions), here & now documents
• Creating Variables
• Variable assignment
• Variable Scope
• Namespaces
• User-defined Constants
• String constants, variable interpolation into strings
• Array, Object & Function interpolation
• HTTP environment variables
• Magic Constants GLOBALS array
• Variable References

PHP Operators

• Arithmetic Operators
• Logical Operators
• Relational (Comparison) Operators
• The Identity Operator
• The Assignment Operators
• Increment & Decrement Operators
• Bitwise Operators
• Error Suppression Operator
• The Conditional (Ternary) Operator
• The Default Operator
• Execution Operators
• Other Operators
• Assignment Operators
• Operator Precedence and Associativity

Conditional Tests and Events in PHP

• True and False if
• Comparing Strings and Numbers else and elseif
• Hierarchical conditions (nested if statements)
• The ? : Operator
• Comparing for equality or identity
• The switch / case statement
• Alternative Syntax for Control Structures

PHP Flow Control

• Loops while do ... while for break and continue goto exit

PHP Configuration

• The php.ini file
• Module Vs CGI Usage register_globals
• Control of error logging
• Control of resource limits
• Commonly set configurations
• File system security safe_mode & open_basedir
• PHP4 compatibility in PHP5
• A glance at upcoming PHP6

PHP Functions

• Purpose of functions
• Built-in functions
• Declaring functions
• Functions Arguments
• Default Arguments
• Arguments - Call by Reference
• Return
• Returning References
• Variable Scope (global vs local)
• Static variables
• Recursion include and require
• Variable function calls

Storing Data in Arrays using PHP

• What are arrays?
• How and when to use arrays
• Indexing arrays, numeric and hashes
• Initialising arrays
• Using foreach
• Add/remove elements from arrays
• One-dimensional arrays
• Multi-dimensional arrays
• References to array elements
• Arrays in forms
• Array operators
• Array related functions

Handling Databases with PHP

• PHP's database APIs
• Error-handling strategies
• Connection/disconnection to the database, log in/log out
• Escaping strings in SQL statements
• Including common access functions
• Doing simple SQL queries via PHP
• Building HTML tables using SQL Queries
• Avoiding SQL Injection attacks
• Access to: MySql, MySqli, Oracle & MS-SQL
• Using PEAR DB
• Using PHP Data Objects - PDO
• An Insight to Smart Programming

String Manipulation in PHP

• Substring and [] operators
• Case conversion, trimming
• Formatting output data with sprintf
• Adding & removing backslashes
• Regular expressions
• Metacharacters: character classes, repetitions
• Regular Expression Examples
• Alternation and Grouping
• Perl Compatible Regular Expressions PCRE
• Capturing for Enhanced Validation
• Substitution with PCRE preg_split and Regexes
• Deprecation of POSIX Extended Library
• Web Site Vulnerabilities

Sessions and Cookies in PHP

• What is a session?
• Dependencies on the php.ini file
• Understanding PHP session variables
• Create a PHP session variable
• Register and modify PHP session variables
• Putting PHP session IDs in pages
• Good Practise with sessions and PHP
• Cookie properties
• Setting a cookie in PHP
• Retrieving PHP cookies
• Expiring/Deleting PHP cookies
• Drawbacks to cookies
• Using cookies well
• Testing for cookie support
• Sessions without cookies
• Cookie Security Issues

File and Directory Access Using PHP

• Opening files, local and remote
• Reading & writing and moving about in files fflush(), file(), fpassthru(), readfile()
• PHP portability on different Operating Systems
• Finding file metadata: size, ownership, modification time
• Handling file permissions
• Handling file ownership
• Copying, Renaming and Deleting Files
• File locking
• Opening and reading directories
• File uploads from the browser/user

Other I/O Issues in PHP

• Getting IP addresses from visitors
• Getting referring URLs from visitors
• Environment variables
• Showing different content to different browsers (IE, Netscape, Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, etc)
• Handling HTTP and MIME headers

Object Orientation in PHP

• Object basics
• Classes in PHP
• PHP4 - constructors
• PHP5 - constructors and destructors
• Inheritance
• Accessing instance data and functions __sleep and __wakeup __autoload
• Class constants
• PHP5 OO Additions, type hints, foreach, __autoload
• PHP 5.4 — instantiate & member access
• Objects: Assignments and References try, throw catch exception handling

PEAR, PECL and Smarty

• PECL quick tour
• APC - Alternative PHP Cache
• Xdebug - debugging and profiling
• PEAR installation and quick tour
• PEAR Config
• PEAR Log
• PEAR Auth (login)
• PEAR HTML_QuickForm2
• Smarty Templates
• Smarty and HTML_QuickForm2
• Smarty and QuickForm2 help with security

Handling Email with PHP

• Sending email
• Sending multi part email - MIME
• Accessing mail boxes - IMAP & POP

Graphics in PHP

• Graphics basics, referencing a PHP scrip in an IMG tag
• Image MIME type
• Basic examples, line/box drawing
• Creation from an existing image
• Image copying and resizing
• Drawing text on images
• True Type fonts

Putting it all together — outline

• Application design
• Quick start
• Web server configuration
• Apache Virtualhost config
• Simple project — 2 table database
• Project skeleton
• Configuration: test & live sites
• Structure of web program
• Smarty templates for the project
• Structure of a Smarty template
• Example Smarty template
• Firefox Add-ons: Web Developer, Firebug, YSlow
• Using rsync to copy test to live

Putting it all together — database

• The database behind the application
• Designing the database
• Metadata management
• Entity-relationship (ER) diagrams
• ER Diagram example
• Data Modelling tools
• Users to access the database
• Creating the databases & tables
• Creating test data

Putting it all together — displaying data

• Displaying data from the database
• Outline of data display function
• Example list display function
• Displaying a list with Smarty
• More succinct use of SQL
• SQL WHERE clauses
• Combine tests in a WHERE clause
• SQL: grouping and Ordering of results
• SQL JOIN LEFT, RIGHT & FULL JOINs
• Displaying long lists in pages with LIMIT
• Showing lists a page at a time
• Implementing pages in Smarty Templates
• Making Smarty and SQL play well
• Summary

Acting on items in a list

• Choosing items from a list
• Big picture
• Multiple items chosen at once
• One item only to be chosen
• One item with select action onChange: auto submit the form
• Greying out options
• Searching in a list
• What to do with something chosen
• Conclusion

Create & edit data

• Creating & editing data
• Creating & editing are much the same
• Use the same names everywhere
• outline use of a HTML_QuickForm2 form
• Adding fields to the form
• Field validation
• Validation types
• Smarty Template with HTML_QuickForm2
• Form validation and processing
• Display of validation errors
• Conclusion

Putting it all together — conclusion

• Other issues
• Version control
• Audit trail
• security and access control
• Performance
• Styling and accessibility

References to interesting PHP resources on the web