If you're ready to create web pages more complex than those you can build with HTML and CSS, "Head First PHP & MySQL" is the ultimate learning guide to building dynamic, database-driven websites using PHP and MySQL. Packed with real-world examples, this book teaches you all the essentials of server-side programming, from the fundamentals of PHP and MySQL coding to advanced topics such as form validation, session IDs, cookies, database queries and joins, file I/O operations, content management, and more. "Head First PHP & MySQL" offers the same visually rich format that's turned every title in the "Head First" series into a bestseller, with plenty of exercises, quizzes, puzzles, and other interactive features to help you retain what you've learned.This title discusses how to: use PHP to transform static HTML pages into dynamic web sites; create and populate your own MySQL database tables, and work with data stored in files; perform sophisticated MySQL queries with joins, and refine your results with LIMIT and ORDER BY; use cookies and sessions to track visitors' login information and personalize the site for users; protect your data from SQL injection attacks; use regular expressions to validate information on forms; dynamically display text based on session info and create images on the fly; and, pull syndicated data from other sites using PHP and XML.
Throughout the book, you'll build sophisticated examples - including a mailing list, a job board, and an online dating site - to help you learn how to harness the power of PHP and MySQL in a variety of contexts. If you're ready to build a truly dynamic website, "Head First PHP & MySQL" is the ideal way to get going.