The first and only officially authorized book on the PHP Certification exam developed by Zend Technologies, the commercial developer of PHP. Zend’s PHP Certification exam is a high-quality, carefully developed exam designed to enhance and certify the skills of the PHP professional. The Zend PHP Certification Study Guide is a concise, densely packed book that will get you up to speed quickly on the nature of the exam’s questions and what to expect on exam day. It’s authoritative content comes directly from those writing the exam at Zend Technologies. PHP professionals and Zend Certified PHP 5 Engineers Davey Shafik and Ben Ramsey, and reviewed by core PHP developer Derick Rethans, this is the perfect book for every prospective Zend Certified PHP Engineer candidate

PHP Developer’s Dictionary is a well-organized, comprehensive reference for PHP programmers. In addition to providing a complete syntax reference for all core PHP functions and all module functions, the PHP Developer’s Dictionary also provides a complete collection of compilation, installation, and configuration options. The resulting book provides an indispensable reference for any PHP programmers or administrator overseeing a PHP installation.

With the number of security flaws and exploits discovered and released every day constantly on the rise, knowing how to write secure and reliable applications is become more and more important every day. Written by Ilia Alshanetsky, one of the foremost experts on PHP security in the world, php|architect’s Guide to PHP Security focuses on providing you with all the tools and knowledge you need to both secure your existing applications and writing new systems with security in mind. This book gives you a step-by-step guide to each security-related topic, providing you with real-world examples of proper coding practices and their implementation in PHP in an accurate, concise and complete way. Provides techniques applicable to any version of PHP, including 4.x and 5.x Includes a step-by-step guide to securing your applications Includes a comprehensive coverage of security design Teaches you how to defend yourself from hackers Shows you how to distract hackers with a “tar pit” to help you fend off potential attacks.

PHP is far more than a cult language or open-source icon. It's a remarkably capable language that's well integrated with lots of technologies--notably mSQL and MySQL database servers--and quite easy to learn. Programming PHP helps you up the PHP learning curve, very nearly guaranteeing that you'll find in its pages an example that illustrates every fundamental aspect of the language and its most important extension modules. Plus, there's some cool advanced stuff, like recipes for manipulating images, working with Extensible Markup Language (XML) content, and generating Adobe Acrobat (PDF) files. Rasmus Lerdorf invented PHP and quarterbacks its ongoing evolution, so there's little question of the content's authority.

The authors use a Talmudic style to explore PHP's capabilities and explain them to their readers, meaning that they like to present code and commentary in close formation, with each enhancing the other. Typically, they'll present a capability generically and show the relevant code. Then they'll dig into variations on the theme, calling attention to required code alterations as they go. This is a book about PHP itself, so practically no attention is paid to PHP Builder or other development tools. Regardless, this book will help you solve programming challenges with PHP, and enable you to write efficient, attractive code. --David Wall

Being highly flexible in building dynamic, database-driven web applications makes the PHP programming language one of the most popular web development tools in use today. It also works beautifully with other open source tools, such as the MySQL database and the Apache web server. However, as more web sites are developed in PHP, they become targets for malicious attackers, and developers need to prepare for the attacks.

Security is an issue that demands attention, given the growing frequency of attacks on web sites. Essential PHP Security explains the most common types of attacks and how to write code that isn't susceptible to them. By examining specific attacks and the techniques used to protect against them, you will have a deeper understanding and appreciation of the safeguards you are about to learn in this book.

In the much-needed (and highly-requested) Essential PHP Security, each chapter covers an aspect of a web application (such as form processing, database programming, session management, and authentication). Chapters describe potential attacks with examples and then explain techniques to help you prevent those attacks.

Topics covered include:

• Preventing cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerabilities
• Protecting against SQL injection attacks
• Complicating session hijacking attempts

You are in good hands with author Chris Shiflett, an internationally-recognized expert in the field of PHP security. Shiflett is also the founder and President of Brain Bulb, a PHP consultancy that offers a variety of services to clients around the world.