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Get up to Speed with Object-Oriented PHP

PHP Object-Oriented Solutions book cover PHP is easy to learn and a great way to add dynamic functionality to websites, such as sending email from online forms, and generating database-driven content. But there soon comes a time when you realize you’re writing similar scripts over and over again. By adopting an object-oriented approach, you can avoid the need to reinvent the wheel every time, creating scripts that are easier to understand and maintain.

The main barrier to object-oriented programming (OOP) is that it’s based on unfamiliar concepts, such as objects, classes, interfaces, encapsulation, and polymorphism. This book strips away the mystique, and explains each concept in an approachable and understandable way. It provides a gentle, but fast-paced introduction to OOP as it applies to PHP. Another barrier to the adoption of OOP among PHP developers has been the slow migration from PHP 4, which used a radically different—and inferior—object model. PHP Object-Oriented Solutions concentrates exclusively on using OOP with PHP 5 and 6. So you can be confident that you’re learning skills that won’t be out of date almost as soon as you put the book down.

Through a series of practical projects, PHP Object-Oriented Solutions shows how OOP can be used to group related functions in a portable manner. The projects include a validator for filtering user input, a class that avoids the need to remember all the esoteric PHP date formatting codes, and an XML generator—everyday requirements for a lot of developers. Although the emphasis is on learning how the code works, if you’re in a hurry, the PHP classes used in the book can be incorporated into existing sites with a minimum of effort.

PHP Object-Oriented Solutions is aimed at intermediate developers with a good understanding of PHP basics, such as variables, arrays, functions, loops, and conditional statements. It provides the necessary groundwork for advancing on to use an object-oriented framework, such as the Zend Framework.