PHP and mySQL - Introduction

Prerequisites:

Web development experienced and understanding of SQL commands. The participants should also be conversant with HTML.

Course Description:

Static Webpages are no longer sufficient for the needs of the Internet in the 21st Century. An increasing number of business sites use databases to store data and produce dynamic Webpages.

PHP and mySQL are a cost-effective but powerful solution to building database driven Websites which can be developed on Windows and deployed on either Windows or Unix(Linux)servers. This course does not cover the PHP language itself in great depth but concentrates on getting up and running with the mySQL database, using PHP as the server-side control.

PHP is a powerful, free server-side language which is relatively easy to learn for those who have never programmed before.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

Install and configure PHP, mySQL and Apache Webserver on Windows
How databases are used on the Web
Use PHPmyAdmin to create and edit databases
Query your database with basic SQL commands
Program with basic PHP statements
Use PHP to communicate with your database
Add, Delete and Modify data in the browser
Build a complete Data Management system with PHP and mySQL

This course includes the following modules:

Introduction to PHP

• Why choose PHP/MySQL/Apache
• PHP's purpose and capabilities
• Server Side vs. Client Side Scripting
• What PHP looks like Basic structure
• Setting your development environment up with your testing server
• Testing PHP installations in your server
• Which servers can use php
• Where to write the php code and using which applications
• Language Basics

Structure and Syntax

• Data Types in PHP
• Using Variables and Constants
• Processing data using operators
• Understanding Arrays
• Working with combinations of Data Types, Variables and Arrays
• Arrays

Array types

• Multi-dimensional arrays
• Getting data out of arrays
• Array operations
• addition
• comparing
• Counting
• Searching
• Flipping/Reversing
• Deleting elements within an array
• More Arrays

Sorting arrays

• sort
• asort
• ksort
• natsort
• shuffle
• key sort
• Stacks and Queues
• push/pop
• shift/unshift
• Sets
• array_diff
• array_intersect
• Strings

Escape sequences

• Variables and string combined
• Escaping literal values
• Length
• translation
• comparison
• searching
• matching
• search and replace
• Giving your code life Control Structures

Conditional decision making if, else, and elseif

• True, false, and evaluation of expressions
• Multiple and nested conditions
• Short Circuit Evaluation break and continue
• The ?¢‚Äöá®Ä∫? Operator
• Decision making using the switch statement
• Iterations using while, do...while, for and for each loops
• Iterating through an array
• Terminating code using exit, return, and die
• Creating Dynamic Web Content

Embedding PHP in Web pages

• Retrieving user input through forms, using the GET and POST method
• Handling the date and time
• Dynamically including code using include and require
• mail and php
• Cookies
• Using PHP's built-in functions

Mathematical functions

• Generating random numbers
• Creating custom functions

Why write your own functions

• Syntax for defining a function
• Variable scope, and the global statement
• Adding in function parameters
• Return values from functions
• Objects and Classes

Basic OOP

• Constructors/Destructors
• Visibility & Scope
• Static
• Constants
• Introduction to Databases

Why use a database The three-tier architecture approach

• Introducing MySQL and PHPMyAdmin
• Understanding the database structure
• Creating a simple database
• Basic SQL commands
• Making PHP and MySQL work for each other

Connecting to the database

• Displaying database content through PHP
• Inserting and deleting data into the Database
• Updating data in the Database
• Security considerations