PHP Cookbook: Solutions & Examples for PHP Programmers 3rd Edition

Great book to have on your desk. Most books end up on the shelf right away but this one is a great reference guide offering a realistic Problem, Solution, and an Discussion. The book is made right. This is not a book to teach you php. Its a book to offer an idea on ways to build with php. If you have not used php at all, you will need some basic understanding of the syntax along with this book. The only thing I regret is I wish I had bought this as digital instead for faster research.

Unexpectedly had to take over as webmaster when our club's person had medical issues. I need to understand some of the code on a multitude of pages and this book got me there. There are a number of improvements I would like to make now that I have things under control and the solutions in this book will get me there.

Good go to reference. Lots of solid explanations. Great book to keep by your side if you are new to PHP development. I usually keep a few books near my computer and put most in the other room on the bookcase. This is definitely one I keep by the computer.

Overall, a good reference book, but not really a guide for learning. Use this if you want to have examples of implementations on hand.I think there is heavy reliance on procedural style, but it is mostly a good bet, as far as reference books go.

Excellent PHP book for those that are experienced programmers. Good solutions that are explained thoroughly with examples and as a bonus you can download all the code. Helped me find a number of ways to do new things or to make some things better.

Fantastic book if you are learning PHP. I have build my first website and I was able to improve it a lot by implementing at least 1 recipe of each chapter in the book.

Written for advanced Programmers. PDO for the most part. If using sqli, you need to back convert.

This book (version 2) holds a special place in my mind. After the book "Learning PHP" this was the book I bought to teach myself how to use PHP. Many more books followed but at first this book helped me figure out how to do some of the more common uses for the language.This version of the book seems to have the same basic recipes that were in the first book. The table of contents is almost identical. Updated code of course but still the same examples to do the same things. There are some additions, redirecting to a mobile site wouldn't of made sense 7-8 years ago when I bought version 2 but its in there now.The same nostalgia that makes me like this book is conflicting with the knowledge I now have at just how basic the information really is. As a beginner the same examples helped but frankly if you have any sort of knowledge of the language this book is like elementary math compared to geometry.The reality is that all of the "how-tos" in this book can be found elsewhere for free. Most of the "recipes" are just examples of how different functions work. As a beginner just knowing which function to use was helpful but when you know what you want to do finding the answers is fairly easy.Overall I recommend the book to someone trying to learn the language (after Learning PHP of course). If you have some experience programming PHP I'm not sure the book is worth it since you will know most of whats provided and you probably will know how to search for the answers to the things you don't. I have to rate this book a 4, a 5 for beginners but a 3 for anyone with PHP experience.