Welcome to the companion Web site for the third edition of the book PHP 6 and MySQL 5 for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide, written by Larry Ullman and published by Peachpit Press. This page is specifically for the book’s third edition, published in December 2008 (ISBN 0-321-52599-x). The first edition was published in May 2003 (ISBN 0-321-18648-6). If you are using the first edition of the book, you should go to that page. The second edition was published in June 2005 (ISBN 0-321-33657-7). If you are using the second edition of the book, you should go to that page. The fourth edition of the book will be published in Summer 2011.
Beside the handful of pages dedicated to this edition of 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.
You can download the code for the book using the link 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.
Downloads
Every script in the text is available here to be downloaded. 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 (e.g. http://www.DMCinsights.com/php/hello.php) are not available for execution online.
- These are the scripts for the THIRD EDITION of the book. If you are using a different edition, click the appropriate link above to find the correct page.
- 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 and SQL Commands
phpmysql3_scripts.zip (131 KB, last modified 11/25/2009)
The extras mentioned in the book can be found in the appropriate chapter folders in the complete set of scripts and commands.
Can’t download the zip file link above for Complete set of scripts… can you help?
I fixed the link. Sorry about that!
Thanks Larry, greatly appreciated!!
Have moved on to this set of skills: Flash (AS), XML, Php, SQL, and MySQL. Finding it very interesting, and wouldn’t have tackled it without getting the confidence from reading your books first, so thanks.
Thank you for the nice words. I’m glad you’re progressing nicely and I wish you continued success.
Larry, just wanted to say thank you for all the hard work you’ve put into your books. I’ve gone through many of your PHP books and found them invaluable. You’ve converted me from an “Access/ASP classic” newbie to an almost legitimate “PHP/MySQL” programmer ;0)
Thanks again,
–Leo
Thanks, Leo, for the nice words. I really appreciate it! I’m sure you’ll be a completely legitimate PHP/MySQL programmer in no time!
$user = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];
The above code gave the following output:
You are viewing this page using:
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; Trident/4.0; GTB6.6; Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1) ; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.5.21022; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; OfficeLiveConnector.1.5; OfficeLivePatch.1.3; .NET4.0C)
But, in fact I was using the IE8 to view this.
That’s correct, which is why the response includes “MSIE 8.0″: Microsoft Internet Explorer 8. Also, as I say in bold just before the comment form, questions about code in the book would be much better addressed in the forum.
While using,
$url = BASE_URL . ‘index.php’; // Define the URL:
ob_end_clean(); // Delete the buffer.
header(“Location: $url”);
getting error message:
Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /login.php:1)
Please do help.
Per the error message, your login.php script is outputting something on line 1. It may be a space, some HTML, or maybe you’ve just got the wrong encoding. Also, as I say in bold just before the comment form, questions about code in the book would be much better addressed in the forum.
Hi Larry,
Your book is great thus far I’m just having trouble finding the SQL scripts for Chapter 6. It doesn’t seem to be in the scripts.zip file and the support forums link doesn’t seem to be working either.
Thanks for any help,
Andy
Hello Andy. Thanks for the nice words. If you download phpmysql3_scripts.zip, there’s a sql_utf8.sql file in the download. The Ch 6 SQL commands are in there. I just checked. Also, what do you mean the support forums link doesn’t seem to be working? I just checked all three links to the forums from this page and had no problems. Thanks again!
Larry,
Love your work. Lots of fun learning with it. Want to point out one typo for you. On page 244 of the book (I have the edition published in 2008, though I don’t know and it doesn’t say what edition this one is) you refer to “line 46 in Script 8.3,” saying the info in the line ought to be moved. The error is that you surely meant line 47 in Script 8.3; line 46 is blank. Best, John
Thanks, John, for the nice words on the book. And, yes, you’re correct. Should be line 47. I’ll add that to the errata. Thanks for pointing that out!
where are the mysql tables?
The SQL commands for creating the tables can be found in the file with all the scripts (as I say above).
I thought PHP and MYSQL was going to be impossible. To be honest i watched hours of Learning php and mysql tutorial videos and read tons of ebooks, and still left with little knowledge. Then i found this book and everything that i watched and read started to make sense as i advanced further along into Larrys book. This is because it was well written and you can tell that Larry was given the GIFT of Teaching. You can know all the php in the world, but if you lack the the teaching skills you shouldn’t try to write books and crate tutorials, because the writers make everything harder and more complex than it actually is. In other words if you want to learn the basic structure of php and mysql then don’t hesitate to hop on top of this book. Thanks again Mr.Larry
Thank you, Brent. That’s very, very kind of you to say. Good luck with your future PHP & MySQL projects!
great I have just began to read the book hope this will work for me I got some experiences in JavaScript and XHTML , and Microsoft Access.
thanks anyway.
can u tell me how long will it take to become a mastered PHP programmer.??? like ability to develop any sort of web applications.
Thanks for the interest in the book. As for your question, you’ll be developing real Web applications by the end of the book. To become a “master” PHP programmer, that depends upon how much time you put into it, you existing knowledge, what kinds of projects you work on, etc. There’s no clear answer. And, frankly, it doesn’t matter, in my opinion.
hey there are no exercises at end of the chapter
No there are not. The next edition of the book will have that. If you need help or have questions, please use the corresponding forum.
Hey Larry,
The book is amazing, it stood out from all the others i looked at and im dead happy with my choice
everything you say is just, so easy to understand and retrace back when things go wrong!
i’ll be sure to come back to you when im done with this one
THANK YOU!!
Thank you very much, Alec. I’m glad to hear that and it’s nice of you to say. Thank you!
Hi, i have bought the book PHP6 & MySQL5 and i would like to find the orders of SQL of the examples here in this website.. Where exactly are they?
The SQL commands are in the “Complete Set of Scripts and SQL Commands”, just a few lines up.
hi I think I found an errata
The ksort() function will sort an array
by key ,but in ascending order
first it says
but the title says
Sort the array numerically by descending
rating and print again.
Hi, I used my holiday finished this book, I am very enjoying this book, though there are some things are still cannot figure out. Such as, I use ubuntu system, the latest version of PHP is 5.3.3. I cannot find PHP6. So, I couldn’t test the Chapter 14 examples. I wonder if the old version doesn’t support muti-language, how did it work for other language before?
Thanks for the nice words on the book. Unfortunately, since the book was written, PHP 6 collapsed. It was about 50% done when I wrote the book, but they hit some major hurdles and decided to rethink what they’re doing. But only about half of Ch 14 requires PHP 6.
I’m following the code you use in your guide, but it’s really not working the way you said it would. It may be because I’m running php 5. PHP 6 doesn’t seem to even exist. If that’s true, is this book worth anything? Because the code isn’t working right for php 5.
Thanks for the message. When I wrote the book, I used a beta version of PHP 6, which has since been pulled. Only a few pages in Chapter 14 require PHP 6, however. 95% of the book still works fine. If you’re having problems, please use the book’s supporting forum where I, and others, will assist.
hey I can’t execute mySQL command in command prompt
ERROR 1064 (42000): You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that
corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘”CREA
TE DATABASE GRYPHESTK”
CREATE DATABASE PHPSQL’ at line 1
mysql>
I typed this
CREATE DATABASE PHPSQL;
but it will return an error but it works fine on PHPMyADMIN
anyway I use Windows 7 Ultimate ,also I have recently installed SQL Express edition 2008
and this MySQL both in my machine cause I need SQL Express edition for my college works.
so I can’t uninstall SQL Expression Edition.
thanks.
Hello Tom,
As it says, in bold, just above the form you submitted this comment in, “If you need quick assistance with a question or problem related to one of my books, please use the support forums instead.” The comments area is not a viable place for debugging assistance.
So I just finished this book. I really want to get into more advanced subjects such as Zend and OOP. What do you recommend is the next book I read?
Thanks for the interest in my books. I don’t specifically discuss Zend in any of my books (although I do, occasionally, on this blog). My “PHP 5 Advanced” book goes into OOP in good detail, though.
Why are chapters 4,5, and 6 omitted from the download zip file?
If you look at the contents of the book itself, you’ll see that there are no scripts in those three chapters.
I am a chinese reader of yours ,I am very enjoying your book too.Thank you for write those nice book !
Thanks!
The three extra zip files won’t open with winzip. I get the following message:
Cannot open file: does not appear to be a valid archive.
Sorry to hear that. What OS are you using? I’ll test them myself (I have Windows XP) to see what I see.
I am using windows 7.
The main code file did download and open.
The three extras did download but wouldn’t open with winzip.
Okay. Sorry about that. I just re-zipped the files and uploaded them. Please let me know if they work or don’t work for you now.
Thanks for your prompt replies.
The images for chapter 17 have transferred OK.
The two css zips won’t open with winzip. It says the files are corrupt.
So nearly there. On page 54, will soon need the css files.
I have just checked the main source code file.
In ch3, ch8, ch9 and ch11 there is a css file under their INCLUDES sub directory.
Also, in ch16 there is a css.
Similarly, in chapter 17 there is a sub directory with IMAGES.
Does this mean that the extras are not necessary?
D’oh! That would seem to imply that the extras aren’t necessary. Not sure what I was thinking but the important thing is that you’ve got what you need. Sorry about the inconvenience!
Can you check the links on the two CSS files? I’m having problems downloading. Thank you.
Sorry about the problems. I just tested them myself and they worked for me. However, the two CSS files and the images are also in the complete set.
Your image of books overwrites your menus in IE and Chrome, hard to navigate.
Sorry about that and thanks for letting me know. I updated the widget and forgot to add a thing. It should be fixed now.
It’s May 14 as I write this, and I find the books widget is still interfering with your menus on IE9. I managed to get here, but it was a little clunky.
Okay, thanks for letting me know and I apologize for the inconvenience. I just tested it on IE9 a couple of days ago without problem, but I’ll look at it again.
I’m sure you’ve probably run into this, but a little Googling about this “Flash on top of Nav menus” brought up an embed tweak for the widget that’s different than what I see in your widget source.
The supposed *fix* tweak is in the widget (or other flash) embed code by setting “wmode=opaque”. When I pull the source for your page, it shows “wmode=transparent”. Maybe give “opaque” a shot? In any event, I’m quite sure you are much more knowledgeable about this stuff than my newb self, so I’ll leave you to wend your magic.
Hello Rick,
Thanks again for your help in debugging this. I *think* it’s fixed now (I just tested it again myself). I switched from transparent to opaque, but that wasn’t the fix. The fix was using both an embed property and a PARAM argument (although my understanding is the latter is preferred). Anyway, I think it’s working now and thanks again. Very much appreciated!
Enjoying your book here in Northern Uganda… Great work Larry. Keep it up.
Can’t download the zip file link above for Complete set of scripts… can you help?
I just tested it myself again and it works fine. What OS are you using? When you say you can’t download them, what does happen?
如果这里有中国的读者或者作家浏览，那么的确应该学习一下Larry Ullman对读者负责的态度！
我前几天购买的这本书，不仅在Amazon网站看到了作者对评论的回复，还在这里看到了作者的回答。这种认真负责的精神，让我觉得买到了一本非常好的，很可靠的图书！
Thanks, Diaosu!
Hy Lary, PHP 6 and 5 is very very good book. It systematically deals with basic PHP and SQL/MySQL. Very much appreciated! J wish you luck with writing and to write a lot of books.
Greeting from far Republic of Srpska!
Hi Larry, thank you for a great book! I can’t seem to find the SQL scripts though. I’ve done loaded the zip file with scripts, but I can seem to find the SQL scripts. There is no folder for chapter 5 and 6.
Many thanks,
Chris
Thanks for the nice words. All of the SQL commands are in the sql_utf8.sql file.
Ooops! How did I not notice that file. Many thanks. I’m up and runnig again. I’ll probably buy your e-commerce book once I’ve worked through this one. Cheers
Chris
No problem, Chris. And thanks for the interest in the e-commerce book!
Hi Larry
just wanted to thank for the effort you put in your books/scripts (and this website). The content of your books is presented in a very accessible way.
the bucks i spent for 2 of your books were a ridiculous low investment compared to what i gained
Thank you for teaching us
Thank you, Bill. I’m glad you like my work and it’s kind of you to say so. Good luck with your future projects!
Hi Larry,
I’m Rubem Figueredo, from Brazil. I’ve already read many books about this issue but never founded a book like this. I realy enjoyed the Larry’s book ’cause it’s clear and concise nd it teach me many things that there aren’t in my language.
Thank you very much. I’m glad you liked the book and thanks for saying so.
Hi Larry
Great book. One of the best of this type that I have used.
With PHP 6 not available are there work arounds for the issues raised in Chapter 14 (Making Universal Sites) and for Chapter 15 (Example – Message Boards)? I spent a fair bit on the book and would like to be able to complete all sections.
regards
Doug
Thank you very much, Doug. I’m glad you like it and it’s nice of you to say. Chapter 15 will work in PHP 5 without modification. As for the bit of content in Chapter 14 that requires PHP 6 (in theory), such as collation, that functionality was moved into PHP 5.3. If you’re using a current enough version of PHP, the PHP Manual shows how to do these things.
Hi Larry..
Reference to chapter 17, add_print.php script:
I have realised that selecting the Existing Artist would post the value ‘existing’ to the database if the artist_id was taken out and replaced with something like artist_name, that would actually display the name of the artist instead of artist_id. The same would happen for new artist posting value ‘new’.
My question is therefore, how can the actual name (either existing or newly added) of the artist be posted in the prints table, artist column?
Regards,
I’m not sure that I understand your question and I’d prefer that people use the supporting forums for technical support of any kind.
Clearly stated by many readers and my thoughts also, great book. As I step by step, move through the book, there is one thought of great importance and that is ‘secure access’ to the MySQL database.
That ‘secure access’ to the database is the application, the administrator and no ‘unwanted juests’.
Any ideas where a source of ‘how to tighten up’ security?
Thanks much, back to work with the next chapter.
Hello Robert. Thanks for your question. I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking, though. I’d be happy to answer your question, if you could elaborate, if you’d post it in the book’s corresponding forum.
Hey Larry,
i’m 17 and i have started reading your book before ten days…learning little by little..it is so helpful for me.
I have been searching a book like yours for month…and at last i got it..
Your books is something special.
Thanks, Solai. Glad you like it and thanks for saying so.
hi,
Am Chris from Kenya and just started learning php using your book as a guide.Your book is easier to understand although sometimes I need further elaboration.I need your help to become self reliant web designer and developer with php.I’m eager to take web development and design as my future career.
I will appreciate your help.
Thanks
Thanks, Chris, for contacting me and for the nice words on the book. I am more than happy to help as much as I can. If you have problems or questions, please use my support forums. Thanks!
I just wondered.. You call the book PHP 6. As I am aware PHP is currently in version 5.3.8 (stable). I have looked though the book and have found several outdated things, which is no loger valid in PHP 5.
Have I been mislead in anyway, or did I miss out on something?
I look forward to a reply.
Hello Sten. Thanks for your interest in the book. I’ve written about this several times now, here in my blog, in my newsletter, in my forum, and on Amazon. The short version is this: when I wrote the book, the beta version of PHP 6 was out, so I used PHP 6 in order to be forward thinking. Specifically, a couple of things in Chapter 14 required PHP 6. Since the book was published, PHP 6 got shelved due to technical problems, although most of what was planned for PHP 6 ended up in PHP 5.3. So there’s literally only a couple of pages of material that can’t be done and there are a few more than require modifications. But overall it affects less than 5% of the content. I do not believe there are any outdated things that are no longer valid in PHP 5, however. I’d be curious to here what you think those are.
All that being said, the fourth edition of this book just came out here in the states last month. It cleans up the PHP 6 references, has expanded SQL and MySQL stuff, and some new chapters. Thanks again!
Larry I think your books are great. I really appreciate you sharing your wealth of knowledge with the rest of us! I’m actually learning how to use php and mysql rather than copying and pasting existing scripts! Thanks so much…keep up the good work!
Thank you very much, Connor!
first of all receive my greetinging
Good morning,,
Larry i have learn your book “php 6 and mysql 5″ which is very amazing wow!
thank u very much for your contribution to the newly developer like me. now i am find such a book where i found aal my requirment.
I just picked up your book PHP 6 and MySQL 5 and I’m at pg. 130. I have to say that without finishing the book yet, this has got to be the best book I have ever had the pleasure of learning from. I frequently fall out of being able to follow these “teach yourself abc in xyz minutes” books and bore of those “The ABC Manual Books” and cry about my poor self esteem from those “ABC for dummies” books but yours is keeping a swift pace and is very easy to follow.
I feel like a PHP Master and I know I have only just started, but it is amazing to look back at all the files I have accomplished just today and say “Wow, I created those!”. Now that I’m starting into the MySQL chapters I can’t wait to see what else the book has in store.
I just wanted to thank you for all of your hard work and sharing your knowledge with the world. Just today, I went out and picked up your jQuery book as well, although I hope to make it through the PHP/MySQL book first.
Thank you!
PS Your book scared me once I got it home, and it said I should already have a knowledge of PHP. I was thinking “Oh no!” but I was able to follow your book perfectly with the only knowledge I had prior being how to comment things out, and how to make a php echo statement and use the opening and closing php tags.
Hey Chris. Thanks for the very nice words on the book. I’m glad you’re liking it. A lot of the credit goes to PHP for being so easy to learn, though. Thanks, too, for the interest in buying more of my books. Unfortunately, I’ve not written a book on jQuery! I am, however, writing a JavaScript book at the moment.
Thanks Larry , Great book , will support you , cant wait for javascript book…..
Thank you very much, Greg!
In chapter 14, script 14.4 transliteration does not work. Namely, the function str_translitearte() is undefined. I checked on the web and it looks like this function does not exist. I updated my library to include internationalization package and so far I had no problems (even with Collator) but this function is nevertheless undefined. In php manual I was able to find transliterator_transliterate() function but it looks like this function is in its development, for no arguments and implementations are given. Can you give some advise on how I can have the function to work? My php version is 5.3.8. Thank you in advance.
Sorry about that. This is one of the few things that got tripped up with the PHP6 debacle. If you could please post this in the support forums, I can address it better there.
Hi Larry,
I have almost a non-existent knowledge of php, zero knowledge of mysql – and I have to try and build a dynamic website from scratch, which will pull data from the web, analyse it, and throw it back into tables on my new website.
I was wondering if you could advise on which of your (highly recommended) book / books I should start with, and any other newbie tips? I look forward to jumping in!
Thanks in advance
Hello Steve. Thanks for the interest in my books. Much appreciated! If you’ve done some programming before and feel comfortable learning new things, I would do the “PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites: Visual QuickPro Guide (4th Edition)”. Make sure you get the latest edition (the 4th), not the “PHP 6 and MySQL 5…”, which is the previous edition. If you’ve never done any programming or just prefer a slower pace, you should read the “PHP for the Web: Visual QuickStart Guide (4th Edition)”. Thanks again!
simple but amasing style of coding
hatz offf 
Thanks for saying so!
Hi Larry. I have two books written by you “PHP 6 and MySQL 5″ and “PHP 5 Advanced “. From all the books on PHP these were the ones that helped me most. Other better rated, bigger or more expensive look foolish compared to your books. The ‘PHP and MySQL Web Development” by Welling/Thomson, better regarded by Amazon readers, for example, it’s simply trash. Plenty of faulty examples, bad thinking and just awful reading. To make a web site following their advise is guaranteed failure. The code is that bad. Your books are easy to follow, readers can build on previous chapters and in the same time can be used quite independently if needed. The code is as far as I can figure it our good. I would recommend your books to anybody interested in learning PHP. In my opinion there is nothing better than these at this moment. I am saying these words from the bottom of heart. This being said I have the regret that you have not extend some of the chapters, especially the OOP part.
I would also like to point out something: you created and refactor several times the registration, login, logout scripts… however, there is not even one page to serve as example of page for authenticated users. The solution suggested is to check for the presence of a session variable. Will this be safe enough? Should we change the default name for the session or regenerate the session it? Will help to have a nonce system implemented? Will help to encrypt some session variable (with salt) and check for that value? In my opinion such a sample page should have been present, namely: restrict access to a page for authenticated users. I would be interested of what you’re thinking about this subject. I’ve noticed the common way of thinking is to check for a session value like “first name” (not the ID or email as these could provide important information to an attacker). If there is no session value for first name than the user is not logged in. It seems very simple to me. Somebody may easily guess the first name’s session name (could be something like $_SESSION['first_name'] and generate a PHPSID=something and it looks the attacker have got access to the page without being in fact authenticated. In my opinion you should have finished what you’ve started (user authentification module) and create a good script tackling this matter (with session timeout, regenerate session id at minimum).
On the other book (PHP5Advanced) I’ve noticed that you suggest the use of ctype and filter. However many people noticed errors with internationalization. I personally am inclined to use regular expressions to blacklist, whitelist and validate. I (recursively) eliminate the control characters from all user data than resolve the magic quotes issue than validate than typecast the result than filter with mysqli_real_escape_characters if it has to go to a database. Is this a redundant effort? For example if no control characters are allowed from beginning, no chance of mail injection (like your “scrubber” function on the other book to deal with the mail injection). Than a \p{L} will assure me, for example, that I will have only letters in any language or just from a particular language like \p{Thai}. Is this approach bad? What benefits could possible give me ctype and filter compared with a class that performs what I mentioned? Basically regular expressions against new (and still buggy at this time) PHP functions. Thank you and I’ll appreciate if you’re kind to answer.
Hello Greg. Thanks for the nice words and for the detailed feedback. I’m glad that you like my work and it’s kind of you to say so. As for your questions, you raise some good points. However, the comments section to a blog aren’t really a good place to have this discussion. If you could post your questions in the books’ supporting forums, I’ll address them there. Thanks again!
Just to let you know, I tried the book URL and was redirected to your new home page but had to do a web search to find the scripts and this page.
Thanks, Jerry. What URL did you originally use? I just entered http://www.dmcinsights.com/phpmysql3 and was immediately taken to the new book home page. On that very page (i.e., this one), are the downloads, and there’s a link that says “Downloads” that will take you there. What URL did you originally use and what URL were you redirected to?
Hey Larry i have a problem wit the show_image of chapter 10 when i click on the link to have a view at the image the show_image pop up but it’s just blank dunno what’s the problem the code is all fine i have checked it more than 10 times plz help