PHP Overview

Welcome to PHP. If you currently program in any other scripting language, you are about to enjoy the world's best scripting language for web sites. Readers starting from languages a long way away from scripting languages, such as Assembler and C, are about to gain the speed improvement Captain Kirk gained when he swapped his push bike for the Starship Enterprise.

The chapter on PHP Overview contains the following sections:
   In Depth
      Programming 101
         A Little History
         Diagnostics
      Advantages of PHP
         Interpret versus Compile
         Parts versus Programming
         Output Control
      PHP4
         New Functions
         New Name
         Speed
         PHP Debugger
         COM for Windows
         Regular Expression Functions
      PHP and Apache
         Apache on Any Platform
         Module or CGI
      The Zen of PHP
         Syntax
         If, Then, Else
         Making Data the Right Type
         Make the Entrance Small and the Exit Large
   Immediate Solutions
      Apache Configuration
      Specific Apache Functions
         apache_lookup_uri()
         apache_note()
         ascii2ebcdic() and ebcdic2ascii()
         getallheaders()
      PHP Configuration
         dl()
         extension_loaded()
      Diagnostics
         assert()
         assert_options()
         die()
      Errors
      Logs
      Output Control
      Security
      Regular Expressions
         ereg()
         ereg_replace()
         eregi()
         eregi_replace()
         split()
         spliti()

Updates and Additions

Updated and additional sections are in the following list.