PHP: The "Right" Way
This book is 100% complete
Completed on 2016-11-14
About the Book
There’s a lot of outdated information on the Web that leads new PHP users astray, propagating bad practices and insecure code. PHP: The Right Way is an easy-to-read, quick reference for PHP popular coding standards, links to authoritative tutorials around the Web and what the contributors consider to be best practices at the present time.
There is no canonical way to use PHP. This book aims to introduce new PHP developers to some topics which they may not discover until it is too late, and aims to give seasoned pros some fresh ideas on those topics they’ve been doing for years without ever reconsidering. This ebook will also not tell you which tools to use, but instead offer suggestions for multiple options, when possible explaining the differences in approach and use-case.
This is a living document and will continue to be updated with more helpful information and examples as they become available.
Table of Contents
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1. Getting Started
- 1.1 Use the Current Stable Version (7.0)
- 1.2 Built-in web server
- 1.3 Mac Setup
- 1.4 Windows Setup
- 2. Code Style Guide
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3. Language Highlights
- 3.1 Programming Paradigms
- 3.2 Namespaces
- 3.3 Standard PHP Library
- 3.4 Command Line Interface
- 3.5 Xdebug
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4. Dependency Management
- 4.1 Composer and Packagist
- 4.2 PEAR
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5. Coding Practices
- 5.1 The Basics
- 5.2 Date and Time
- 5.3 Design Patterns
- 5.4 Working with UTF-8
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6. Dependency Injection
- 6.1 Basic Concept
- 6.2 Complex Problem
- 6.3 Containers
- 6.4 Further Reading
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7. Databases
- 7.1 MySQL Extension
- 7.2 PDO Extension
- 7.3 Interacting with Databases
- 7.4 Abstraction Layers
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8. Templating
- 8.1 Benefits
- 8.2 Plain PHP Templates
- 8.3 Compiled Templates
- 8.4 Further Reading
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9. Errors and Exceptions
- 9.1 Errors
- 9.2 Exceptions
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10. Security
- 10.1 Web Application Security
- 10.2 Password Hashing
- 10.3 Data Filtering
- 10.4 Configuration Files
- 10.5 Register Globals
- 10.6 Error Reporting
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11. Testing
- 11.1 Test Driven Development
- 11.2 Behavior Driven Development
- 11.3 Complementary Testing Tools
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12. Servers and Deployment
- 12.1 Platform as a Service (PaaS)
- 12.2 Virtual or Dedicated Servers
- 12.3 Shared Servers
- 12.4 Building and Deploying your Application
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13. Virtualization
- 13.1 Vagrant
- 13.2 Docker
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14. Caching
- 14.1 Opcode Cache
- 14.2 Object Caching
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15. Documenting your Code
- 15.1 PHPDoc
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16. Resources
- 16.1 From the Source
- 16.2 People to Follow
- 16.3 Mentoring
- 16.4 PHP PaaS Providers
- 16.5 Frameworks
- 16.6 Components
- 16.7 Other Useful Resources
- 16.8 Video Tutorials
- 16.9 Books
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17. Community
- 17.1 PHP User Groups
- 17.2 PHP Conferences
- 17.3 ElePHPants
Causes Supported

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Defending your civil liberties in a digital world.
https://www.eff.org/Based in San Francisco, EFF is a donor-supported membership organization working to protect fundamental rights regardless of technology.
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