Good Php Books

StormLiong

<div class="IPBDescription">need help on recommendations....</div> I was wondering if anyone had any good recommendation on a PHP coding book to be used as a reference guide and/or a beginners guide.

I was thinkinf the O'Reilly series one would be my best bet. Any other?

DOOManiac

For learning PHP, I'd recommend <a href='http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0672317842/102-6604440-4608900?v=glance' target='_blank'>PHP and MySQL Web Development</a> from a publisher called Developer's Library. You can't miss it, as its got a purple spine and a white cover. Authors are Welling & Thomson. Its a good book if you already know how to program, cause they don't take the time to explain the bs you already know (omg what's a function? what's a variable?) but instead go into the differences between PHP and other stuff you may know (such as ASP or C++). I didn't really read the MySQL coverage as I already knew it, but it looked adaquate as well. I use it about daily here at work.

As far as a reference book goes, I'd recommend <a href='http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596004028/qid=1071089148/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-6604440-4608900' target='_blank'>PHP Pocket Reference</a>. O'Reilly is the publisher and Rasmus Lerdorf is the author. Its a skinny book that's pretty much nothing but a list of functions & what they do, all sorted by category (i.e. "Strings", "Math", etc). Very handy and only $10, but again its just for quick reference rather than learning the actual language.

Also, gotta love the <a href='http://www.php.net/quickref.php' target='_blank'>PHP Manual Quick Reference</a> :D

StormLiong

Kewl thanks. I'll most problbaly get the the 1st one you recommeneded since Im already an experienced C++ programmer but have no knowledge with PHP. The book is for my part job as the student union's webmaster. So I'll just as "procrument" department to get it. It will be good when i start adding new features to the site.

On a side note the same department is also me a new color printer too! Gonna wait for the list of printers to choose from and choose the most expensive. Hehe <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo-->

esuna

<!--QuoteBegin--StormLiong+Dec 10 2003, 09:23 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (StormLiong @ Dec 10 2003, 09:23 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Kewl thanks. I'll most problbaly get the the 1st one you recommeneded since Im already an experienced C++ programmer but have no knowledge with PHP. The book is for my part job as the student union's webmaster. So I'll just as "procrument" department to get it.  It will be good when i start adding new features to the site.

On a side note the same department is also me a new color printer too! Gonna wait for the list of printers to choose from and choose the most expensive. Hehe  <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif'><!--endemo--> <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Whatever you end up getting, <a href='http://www.php.net/' target='_blank'>php.net</a>'s documentation is absolutely fantastic.

I tried a book called PHP4 which was a huge tome, but i can't remember the publisher or author at this time, sorry!