Rating:  - Pocket-sized Book is a Big Help
If you are trying to find the right PHP code for a project you're working on, you could thumb through all those books you have stacked on the bookcase behind you. But, I can tell you from personal experience that the answer will always be in the last book you look in. It never fails. Well, this little pocket-sized book is just what I needed and maybe you will too.
The author, Christian Wenz, has collected l00+ code snippets (PHP 4 and 5) and compiled them into this handy book. He not only gives you the most commonly used code but also some you may not have considered using before. He explains the code samples significantly so that you can customize the code to your specific needs. He has tested these snippets on various servers, so there shouldn't be any surprises when you use the code in real world situations.
I think this book is good as a handy Q & A reference, but you might want to read it in your spare moments. Wenz has given you some very good general information as well as discussed some of the common problems and pitfalls when writing web applications in PHP. The book is sectioned into logical categories for quick reference.
Manipulating Strings
Working with Arrays
Date and Time
Working with Web Forms
Cookies and Sessions
File Systems and Databases
Dynamic Data
XML
Remote Servers
Christian Wenz has worked in many areas of PHP programming and has written code for the PEAR repository. He also has written for several IT magazines and books.
Rating: - A PHP Developers Right Hand
This is quite possible the best book I have purchased so far, and I buy a new book every couple of months. I usually to use the Pocket References from O'Rielly but this new Phrasebook series looks like a great replacement. Full of short blocks of code that are easily adaptable to what ever your doing.
Rating: - Concise and relevant at the very same time
With this book Christian Wenz and SAMS are trying to launch a new concept, sort of a condensed "programming cookbook" that can be used as a portable quick reference as well. The author brilliantly manages to keep a balance, being concise and relevant at the very same time. The code samples are well written and up to date with PHP 5; plenty of notes and tips provide valuable words of wisdom. The topic lends itself very well to this format, since PHP has hundreds of functions and many details that are often hard to remember. I really enjoyed this book and I am looking forward to see more titles published along the same series.
Rating: - my new desktop reference
I work with PHP quite a lot, but I keep on forgetting things: How do I prefill a form without introducing security vulnerabilities, how do I connect to which database (in our company, we use several different systems), how do I provide web services, how do I sort arrays in natural language order, and so on. This book contains so many phrases I need in my daily work so that it really helps me save time. Thumbs up!
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