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PHP Course Modules from GBdirect

Combine Modules for Customised PHP Training

All of our PHP course modules are outlined below. At present the entire set is delivered as single course over 3 or 4 days, depending on the experience and skills of delegates.

With judicious selection, however, a purchasing company could build itself a bespoke course from these modules to meet a very specific training need, e.g. a 1 day workshop on developing a shopping trolly application using appropriate PHP functions.

Please ring our training advisors for help in assembling a course with appropriate content, speed of progress, prerequisite knowledge, and consistent subject matter, etc.

Contents

Introduction to PHP

  • History of PHP
  • Comparison with dynamic content alternatives (Perl, CGI, ASP, JSP, Servlets , CGI, etc)
  • PHP tools and set up (web browser/server, editor, libraries, etc)
  • Create a basic PHP Script
  • Taking user input (HTML forms)
  • Self Referring Forms
  • Selecting alternatives
  • Use PHP to generate HTTP headers
  • Pass PHP variables via the URL
  • Debugging Tips
  • Where to find PHP documentation

Taking User Input from Forms via PHP

  • Creating forms with PHP
  • Security Protection from Cross Site Scripting
  • Using the form GET method
  • Using the form POST method
  • Obtaining data from forms through variables
  • Using hidden fields
  • Secure Web Forms (HTTPS and SSL)
  • Calling pages from themselves using forms
  • Quoting HTML entities in user input

Variables and Expressions in PHP

  • Identifiers
  • Data Types (integers, floats, strings and booleans)
  • Type juggling
  • Text constants, interpolation (strings, arrays, objects), here documents
  • Creating Variables
  • Variable assignment
  • Variable Scope
  • Namespaces
  • User-defined Constants
  • String constants, variable interpolation into strings
  • HTTP environment variables
  • Magic Constants
  • Variable References

PHP Operators

  • Arithmetic Operators
  • Logical Operators
  • Relational (Comparison) Operators
  • The Identity Operator
  • Bitwise Operators
  • Error Suppression Operator
  • Execution Operators
  • Other Operators
  • Assignment Operators
  • Operator Precedence and Associativity

Conditional Tests and Events in PHP

  • True and False
  • If
  • Comparing Strings and Numbers
  • else and elseif
  • The ? : Operator
  • Comparing for equality or identity
  • The switch / case statement
  • Alternative Syntax for Control Structures

PHP Flow Control

  • Loops
  • while
  • do ... while
  • for
  • break and continue
  • goto
  • exit

PHP Configuration

  • The php.ini file
  • Module Vs CGI Usage
  • register_globals
  • Control of error logging
  • Control of resource limits
  • Commonly set configurations
  • File system security
  • PHP4 compatibility in PHP5
  • A glance at upcoming PHP6

PHP Functions

  • Purpose of functions
  • Built-in functions
  • Declaring functions
  • Functions Arguments
  • Default Arguments
  • Arguments - Call by Reference
  • Return
  • Returning References
  • Variable Scope (global vs local)
  • Static variables
  • Recursion
  • include and require
  • Variable function calls

Storing Data in Arrays using PHP

  • What are arrays?
  • How and when to use arrays
  • Indexing arrays, numeric and hashes
  • Initialising arrays
  • Using foreach
  • Add/remove elements from arrays
  • One-dimensional arrays
  • Multi-dimensional arrays
  • References to array elements
  • Arrays in forms
  • Array operators
  • Array related functions

Handling Databases with PHP

  • PHP's database APIs
  • Error-handling strategies
  • Connection/disconnection, log in/log out
  • Escaping strings in SQL statements
  • Including common access functions
  • Doing simple SQL queries via PHP
  • Building HTML tables using SQL Queries
  • Avoiding SQL Injection attacks
  • Access to: MySql, MySqli, Oracle & MS-SQL
  • Using PEAR DB
  • Using PHP Data Objects - PDO
  • An Insight to Smart Programming

String Manipulation in PHP

  • substring and [] operators
  • Case conversion, trimming
  • Formatting output data
  • Regular expressions

Sessions and Cookies in PHP

  • What is a session?
  • Dependencies on the php.ini file
  • Understanding PHP session variables
  • Create a PHP session variable
  • Register and modify PHP session variables
  • Putting PHP session IDs in pages
  • Good Practise with sessions and PHP
  • Cookie properties
  • Setting a cookie in PHP
  • Retrieving PHP cookies
  • Expiring/Deleting PHP cookies
  • Drawbacks to cookies
  • Using cookies well
  • Cookie Security Issues

File and Directory Access Using PHP

  • Opening files, local and remote
  • Reading and writing files
  • PHP portability on different Operating Systems
  • Finding file metadata
  • Handling file permissions
  • Handling file ownership
  • File locking
  • Opening and reading directories
  • File uploads from the browser/user

Other I/O Issues in PHP

  • Getting IP addresses from visitors
  • Getting referring URLs from visitors
  • Environment variables
  • Showing different content to different browsers (IE, Netscape, Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, etc)
  • Handling HTTP and MIME headers

Object Orientation in PHP

  • Object basics
  • Classes in PHP
  • PHP4 - constructors
  • PHP5 - constructors and destructors
  • Inheritance
  • Accessing instance data and functions
  • __sleep and __wakeup
  • __autoload
  • Class constants
  • PHP5 OO Additions
  • Objects: Assignments and References
  • Try throw catch Exception handling

PEAR, PECL and Smarty

  • PECL quick tour
  • APC - Alternative PHP Cache
  • Xdebug - debugging and profiling
  • PEAR installation and quick tour
  • PEAR Config
  • PEAR Log
  • PEAR Auth
  • PEAR HTML_Quickform
  • Smarty Templates
  • Smarty and HTML_Quickform
  • Smarty and Quickform help with security

Handling Email with PHP

  • Sending email
  • Sending multi part email - MIME
  • Accessing mail boxes - IMAP & POP

Graphics in PHP

  • Graphics basics, referencing a PHP scrip in an IMG tag
  • Image MIME type
  • Basic examples, line/box drawing
  • Creation from an existing image
  • Image copying and resizing
  • Drawing text on images
  • True Type fonts

References to interesting PHP resources on the web