Modern PHP Mastery

From Fundamentals to Expert-Level Programming with PHP 8

Introduction: The PHP You Don’t Know Yet

1. Why This Book?
2. How This Book Is Structured
3. What You Need to Get Started
4. How to Read This Book
5. A Note on PHP Versions

Chapter 1: Getting Started with PHP

1. What Is PHP?
2. Installing and Configuring PHP
3. Your First PHP Program
4. How PHP Executes Code
5. Development Tools and IDEs
6. Chapter Summary
7. Review Questions
8. Hands-On Exercise

Chapter 2: Variables, Data Types and Constants

1. Variables and Naming Conventions
2. Scalar Types
3. Compound Types
4. Special Types
5. Constants and Typed Constants
6. Type Juggling and Strict Types
7. Deep Dive: How PHP Stores Values Internally
8. Chapter Summary
9. Review Questions
10. Hands-On Exercise

Chapter 3: Operators and Expressions

1. Arithmetic and Assignment Operators
2. Comparison Operators
3. Logical and Bitwise Operators
4. Null Coalescing and Elvis Operators
5. String Concatenation and Interpolation
6. Operator Precedence and Associativity
7. Chapter Summary
8. Review Questions
9. Hands-On Exercise

Chapter 4: Control Flow

1. If, Elseif and Else Statements
2. Switch Statements
3. The Match Expression (PHP 8.0+)
4. For, Foreach, While and Do-While Loops
5. Break, Continue and Goto
6. Error Control Operator (@)
7. Chapter Summary
8. Review Questions
9. Hands-On Exercise

Chapter 5: Functions Deep Dive

1. Defining and Calling Functions
2. Parameters, Arguments and Default Values
3. Named Arguments (PHP 8.0+)
4. Variable-Length Arguments (…args)
5. Return Types and Union Types
6. Anonymous Functions and Closures
7. Arrow Functions (PHP 7.4+)
8. First-Class Callable Syntax (PHP 8.1+)
9. Recursion and Callbacks
10. Chapter Summary
11. Review Questions
12. Hands-On Exercise

Chapter 6: Arrays – PHP’s Workhorse

1. Indexed and Associative Arrays
2. Multidimensional Arrays
3. Array Functions (Map, Filter, Reduce Patterns)
4. Array Destructuring (PHP 7.1+)
5. SplFixedArray and Specialized Arrays
6. Performance Considerations with Large Arrays
7. Chapter Summary
8. Review Questions
9. Hands-On Exercise

Chapter 7: Strings and Text Processing

1. String Literals (Single vs Double Quotes)
2. String Functions and Manipulation
3. String Interpolation and Heredoc/Nowdoc
4. Regular Expressions with PCRE
5. Multibyte String Handling (mbstring)
6. String Comparison and Collation
7. Chapter Summary
8. Review Questions
9. Hands-On Exercise

Chapter 8: Object-Oriented Programming Foundations

1. Classes and Objects
2. Properties and Visibility
3. Methods and the $this Keyword
4. Constructors and Destructors
5. Static Properties and Methods
6. Magic Methods
7. Late Static Binding
8. Chapter Summary
9. Review Questions
10. Hands-On Exercise

Chapter 9: Advanced Object-Oriented Features

1. Inheritance and Method Overriding
2. Abstract Classes and Methods
3. Interfaces and Multiple Interface Implementation
4. Traits and Trait Conflicts
5. Readonly Properties and Classes (PHP 8.1+)
6. Enums (PHP 8.1+)
7. Chapter Summary
8. Review Questions
9. Hands-On Exercise

Chapter 10: Namespaces, Autoloading and Attributes

1. Namespaces and Aliasing
2. PSR-4 Autoloading Standard
3. Composer and Dependency Management
4. Attributes (PHP 8.0+)
5. Reflection API
6. The Standard PHP Library (SPL)
7. Chapter Summary
8. Review Questions
9. Hands-On Exercise

Chapter 11: Error Handling and Exceptions

1. Errors vs Exceptions in PHP
2. Try, Catch, Finally Blocks
3. Custom Exception Classes
4. The Throwable Interface Hierarchy
5. Error Handling Functions and Callbacks
6. The Nullsafe Operator (PHP 8.0+)
7. Debugging Techniques
8. Chapter Summary
9. Review Questions
10. Hands-On Exercise

Chapter 12: Generators, Iterators and Fibers

1. Generators (yield)
2. Generator Delegation (yield from)
3. Generator Send and Return Values
4. Iterator Interface and SPL Iterators
5. The Iterable Pseudo-Type
6. Fibers (PHP 8.1+)
7. Chapter Summary
8. Review Questions
9. Hands-On Exercise

Chapter 13: File I/O, Streams and Serialization

1. File Reading and Writing
2. Directory Operations
3. Stream Wrappers and Filters
4. JSON Encoding and Decoding
5. Serialization and Unserialization
6. CSV Processing
7. Chapter Summary
8. Review Questions
9. Hands-On Exercise

Chapter 14: Type System Mastery

1. Scalar Type Declarations
2. Return Type Declarations
3. Union Types (PHP 8.0+)
4. Intersection Types (PHP 8.1+)
5. The Standalone Null and False Types (PHP 8.2+)
6. The True Type (PHP 8.2+)
7. Typed Class Constants (PHP 8.3+)
8. Type System Deep Dive: How PHP Checks Types
9. Chapter Summary
10. Review Questions
11. Hands-On Exercise

Chapter 15: Performance, Security and Professional Practices

1. Memory Management and Garbage Collection
2. Performance Optimization Techniques
3. Security Best Practices at the Language Level
4. Coding Standards (PSR-12)
5. Static Analysis with PHPStan and Psalm
6. Testing Fundamentals (PHPUnit basics)
7. Modern Development Workflow
8. Chapter Summary
9. Review Questions
10. Hands-On Exercise

Conclusion: The Future of PHP

1. Where to Go From Here
2. The Bigger Picture
3. Final Thoughts

References