Effortless E-Commerce with PHP and MySQL

Welcome to the companion Web pages for the book Effortless E-Commerce with PHP and MySQL, written by Larry Ullman and published by New Riders (ISBN 0-321-65622-9). The book was published in October 2010.

In this comprehensive guide to creating an e-commerce Web site using PHP and MySQL, renowned author Larry Ullman walks you through every step—designing the visual interface, creating the database, presenting content, generating an online catalog, managing the shopping cart, handling the order and the payment process, and fulfilling the order—always with security and best practices emphasized along the way. Even if you’re an experienced Web developer, you’re guaranteed to learn something new.

The book uses two e-commerce site examples—one based on selling physical products that require shipping and delayed payment, and another that sells non-physical products to be purchased and delivered instantly—so you see the widest possible range of e-commerce scenarios. In 11 engaging, easy-to-follow chapters, Effortless E-Commerce with PHP and MySQL teaches you how to:

  • Think of the customer first, in order to maximize sales
  • Create a safe server environment and database
  • Use secure transactions and prevent common vulnerabilities
  • Incorporate different payment gateways
  • Design scalable sites that are easy to maintain
  • Build administrative interfaces
  • Extend both examples to match the needs of your own sites

Audience

This book is written for those with some PHP and MySQL experience (it does not teach the technologies, just how to apply them to e-commerce).

Demo Sites

The book contains two fully-functional examples, which you can also view online in demo mode:

Other Resources

Beside the handful of pages dedicated to this book, there’s plenty of other content on LarryUllman.com that you might be interested in. Use the “Post Categories” links above to browse by general topic. Any post that’s pertinent specifically to this edition of this book will also have the “ecom” tag (also accessed through the “Extras” link on right).

Downloads

You can download the code for the book using the links below. If you have any questions or problems, I’d recommend using the book’s corresponding support forum, where you’ll get the fastest answer. Some things you should know:

  • Although these scripts are named or numbered as they are in the book, they do include any updates and changes as warranted by errors that were found after publication. Thus, if you are having problems with a particular script, download the most current version here or check the errata section.
  • The URLs as referenced in the book are available for execution online (see above).
  • These scripts have been formatted with line breaks that will work on most systems running most text editors. If you have difficulty opening a script, try:
    • adjusting the way your text editor treats text files
    • using a different text editor, if possible
    • posting a message to the online forum, asking for help

Complete Set of Scripts

ecom_scripts_ex1.zip (57 KB, last modified 04/01/2011)

ecom_scripts_ex2.zip (578 KB, last modified 06/23/2011)