Product Description

What do eBay, Amazon.com and CNN.com have in common? They're all applications that integrate large databases with the Web. The popularity of these applications stems from their accessibility and usability: thousands of users can access the same data at the same time without the need to install any additional software on their computers. This book offers Web developers a mixture of theoretical and practical information on creating Web database applications. Using PHP, and MySQL, two open-source technologies that are often combined to develop Web applications, the book offers detailed information on designing relational databases and on Web application architecture, both of which will be useful to readers who have never dealt with these issues before. The book also introduces Hugh and Dave's Online Wines, a complete (but fictional) online retail site that allows users to browse, search a dAtabase, add items to a shopping cart, manage their membership, and purchase wines. Using this site as an example, the book shows you how to implement searching and browsing. If you want to build small to medium-scale Web database applications that can run on modest hardware and process more than a million hits a day from users, this book will show you how.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #447503 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 582 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Web Database Applications shows Web developers how to build rich Web database applications using two leading open-source technologies, PHP and MySQL. The authors also assume use of the Apache Web server, which is by far the most common PHP scenario. Both PHP and MySQL are introduced from scratch, although this is a fast-paced book best suited to at least intermediate developers.

After a brief discussion of Web database applications, the authors offer a rapid tour of PHP essentials, including loops, expressions, functions and common mistakes. Next comes a quick-start guide to MySQL, focusing mainly on the SQL language itself. The following chapters tackle connecting to MySQL and other databases, implementing user-driven queries and enabling writing as well as reading data. There is a useful chapter on data validation, both on the client and the server and excellent coverage of another crucial subject: security and authentication. This looks at the fundamentals of HTTP authentication and examines security features in both Apache and PHP, identifying weaknesses and explaining pros and cons. The closing chapters form a detailed case study, an online wine store, with complete code available for download. It embraces user management, a shopping cart, searching, ordering and delivery, covering many key topics in the process. At the back of the book are appendices on a range of issues, including installation, Web protocols, database modelling and session management.

Web Database Applications is tightly-focused, packing in lots of solid technical information without wasting words. It does not pretend to cover all the potential uses of PHP, and the screen shots will not win prizes for design, but it's a great handbook for building robust, secure database applications with these popular technologies. --Tim Anderson

Review
"As symbolized by the duck-billed platypus on the cover it is a book that will help you to survive in a rapidly changing world. Submerge yourself in proven technology and emerge unscathed once the dots have fallen out by the wayside. Recommended for its excellent examples which will save you thousands in case you need to develop a similar application." Information Security Bulletin, July 2002 "The book manages to deliver on two levels at once - the concepts, planning and design process as well as implementation. It's also surprisingly well written, and manages not to be too smug or patronizing." - Nick Veitch, LinuxFormat, October 2002

Les Benson, Big Blue & Cousins Newsletter, June 2002
"....All in all, it is a comprehensive guide to developing web applications using PHP and MySQL....."

Customer Reviews

Best Investment I've Made!
I'm a 2nd year computing student, with limited experience of Perl and SQL. I'd never used PHP or MySQL and, with this book as my 'bible', I installed and configured the software and built an online voting application in a couple of weeks....and it's given me lots of other food for thought!

The book covers a very broad range of content - web protocols, database design, php essentials, sql, authentication, session management and much more. It doesn't skimp on detail, though - There's enough here to enable anyone with any relevant programming experience to build a web database application with PHP and MySQL. The style is very accessible - each topic is covered in tutorial style and then applied to an example application (an Online Winestore) which is developed throughout the book and the code is available to download.
I've got more out of this one book than any number of others combined - I'd highly recommend it.

Very good, shows you PHP and MYSQL well
A very good book, showing you how to use these two very powerful tools. Text is clear and well written, and the examples are good. It also has useful beginners references on database design, sessions, TCP/IP and HTTP. All in all, more about writing an application more than just PHP/MySQL.

Criticisms? Lacks the depth of a PHP or MySQL specific book, but thats okay. Main complaint is that the examples seem just a little to specific - more general example code rather than just the wine store would be nice. Thumbs up though, guys!

O'Reilly are the best
Having bought many expensive computing books over the years, I find that O'Reilly tends to deliver what I'm looking for pretty much every time. With Web Database Applications with MySQL and PHP there was no exception. I found I was able to get MySQL and PHP working on Linux pretty quickly, by using this in combination with the PHP, Apache and MySQL install notes. Following that I have been able to get started on developing real web applications within a couple of days, and the examples given in the book have been useful and clear.

Although there is a brief "What is a database?" and "What is a webserver?" discussion at the start of this book, you should not expect to learn web concepts, SQL or HTML here. Having done lots of Oracle/Ingres and Java development before I hit the ground running. However, it might be too much too soon if your background until now has been building static webpages with Microsoft Frontpage.

It is interesting that there is no discussion as to when PHP and MySQL might be an appropriate solution. Indeed the back cover of the book asks "What do eBay, Amazon.com and CNN.com have in common?", answering that "they are all applications that integrate large databases with web interfaces". Interesting choice of examples, as Oracle is almost always the database of choice for this kind of very large implementation (including those mentioned). It seems to me that the real advantage of going down the PHP / MySQL route is that the software is free and hosting is very cheap. A dedicated chapter outlining the strengths and weaknesses of the PHP / MySQL approach would have been a nice addition.

All in all, I'd recommend this book as an excellent technical starting point if you want to use PHP and MySQL for your next development project. Having this book to hand will mean you don't need to delve too heavily into the nuts and bolts of the documentation for the first few weeks!