In my newsletter, I had presented some of my thoughts as to changes for the fourth edition, and I received a ton of very useful replies. Before showing the TOC, I want to discuss the feedback and how that impacted my plan.

Many people wanted to see more on the Web server (customizing its behavior, using it for extra security, and so forth), which I think is warranted. The best place to put that content is in Appendix A, “Installation.” Not everyone will have the ability or need to tweak the Web server, so the material should’t go in a chapter, and Appendix A discusses server-related stuff in general as is. I’ll try to cover the most important Apache know-how in about 10 pages or so.

People also wanted to see more on databases, JOINs, and complex SQL, which is natural. The previous version of the book had three dedicated chapters on these subjects: Intro to MySQL, Intro to SQL, and Advanced SQL and MySQL. I’m creating a fourth chapter in this edition, in order to expand this area. The Intro to MySQL and Intro to SQL chapters are similar to the previous edition, teaching the basics while using a single table. The new Chapter 6, “Database Design,” covers not just normalization but MySQL-related issues to design: indexes, storage engines, character sets and collations, and foreign key constraints. Some of this is moved from other chapters and some is entirely new to this edition. In the chapter, two normalized, multi-table databases are designed, including one new one. The revamped Chapter 7, “Advanced SQL and MySQL,” takes some of the existing content on JOINs, groupings, FULLTEXT searches, and the like, and adds more on JOINs, a discussion of EXPLAIN, more sophisticated selections (CASE(), COALESCE(), IF(), etc.) plus transactions, database encryption, and so forth. The creation of a second example database in Chapter 6 means I can create more examples, especially of the complex stuff, in Chapter 7.

There was an appropriately mixed reaction to including some Object-Oriented Programming and JavaScript. Both topics are logical ways to expand the book, but both really require oodles of pages to be covered appropriately. Unless you take shortcuts, that is…

The great thing about OOP is that you can reasonably use it without mastering it. The complexity of OOP is in the design process: creating classes of code with methods, attributes, inheritance, access control, etc. The ease of OOP is in using already defined classes. What I’ve decided to do is show how one uses OOP in PHP. Doing so will provide an introduction to OOP without overwhelming the reader or distracting from the other content. And, there are plenty of good OOP classes built into PHP that I can use as examples. One will be the MySQL Improved extension, which the book already demonstrates procedurally (so the OOP coverage will provide a nice comparison). Other candidates include the DateTime class, the Internationalization libraries, and the Standard PHP Library. From this list of candidates, I should be able to put together a nice chapter that both demonstrates how to use OOP, as well as introduces newer features of PHP 5.3 (in fact, some of these classes replicate functionality that was intended for PHP 6, so I can reuse some of the PHP 6 content in a new way).

By comparison, the great, and bad, thing about JavaScript is that people often use it without really knowing it. There’s no way to effectively teach JavaScript in this book, but I can, similar to how I handle OOP, show how to use the jQuery framework. So I’m hoping I can get a chapter in the book on jQuery, probably using it to add dynamic functionality to some of the book’s existing scripts (e.g., form validation inline, Ajax, etc.).

Depending upon space, I may also create a new appendix that discusses “best practices”.

That’s what I’m thinking thus far. These things are always prone to change, even on the fourth edition. Below is the current version of the table of contents. As always, any and all feedback is welcome. And thanks again to those who have already provided some thoughts.

• Chapter 1: Introduction to PHP
  • Basic Syntax
  • Sending Data to the Web Browser
  • Writing Comments
  • What Are Variables?
  • Introducing Strings
  • Concatenating Strings
  • Introducing Numbers
  • Introducing Constants
  • Single vs Double Quotation Marks
• Chapter 2: Programming with PHP
  • Creating an HTML Form
  • Handling an HTML Form
  • Conditionals and Operators
  • Validating Form Data
  • Introducing Arrays
  • For and While Loops
• Chapter 3: Creating Dynamic Web Sites
  • Including Multiple Files
  • Handling HTML Forms, Revisited
  • Making Sticky Forms
  • Creating Your Own Functions
• Chapter 4: Introduction to MySQL
  • Naming Database Elements
  • Choosing Your Column Types
  • Choosing Other Column Properties
  • Accessing MySQL
• Chapter 5: Introduction to SQL
  • Creating Databases and Tables
  • Inserting Records
  • Selecting Data
  • Using Conditionals
  • Using LIKE and NOT LIKE
  • Sorting Query Results
  • Limiting Query Results
  • Updating Data
  • Deleting Data
  • Using Functions
• Chapter 6: Database Design
  • Normalization
  • Creating Indexes
  • Using Different Table Types
  • Languages and MySQL
  • Time Zones and MySQL
  • Foreign Key Constraints
• Chapter 7: Advanced SQL and MySQL
  • Performing Joins
  • Grouping Selected Results
  • Advanced Selections
  • Performing FULLTEXT Searches
  • Performing Transactions
  • Database Encryption
• Chapter 8: Error Handling and Debugging
  • Error Types and Basic Debugging
  • Displaying PHP Errors
  • Adjusting Error Reporting in PHP
  • Creating Custom Error Handlers
  • PHP Debugging Techniques
  • SQL and MySQL Debugging Techniques
• Chapter 9: Using PHP with MySQL
  • Modifying the Template
  • Connecting to MySQL
  • Executing Simple Queries
  • Retrieving Query Results
  • Ensuring Secure SQL
  • Counting Returned Records
  • Updating Records with PHP
• Chapter 10: Common Programming Techniques
  • Sending Values to a Script
  • Using Hidden Form Inputs
  • Editing Existing Records
  • Paginating Query Results
  • Making Sortable Displays
• Chapter 11: Web Application Development
  • Sending Email
  • Date and Time Functions
  • Handling File Uploads
  • PHP and JavaScript
  • Understanding HTTP Headers
• Chapter 12: Cookies and Sessions
  • Making a Login Page
  • Defining the Login Functions
  • Using Cookies
  • Using Sessions
  • Improving Session Security
• Chapter 13: Security Approaches
  • Preventing Spam
  • Validating Data by Type
  • Validating Files by Type
  • Preventing XSS Attacks
  • Preventing SQL Injection Attacks
• Chapter 14: Perl-compatible Regular Expressions
  • Creating a Test Script
  • Defining Simple Patterns
  • Using Quantifiers
  • Using Character Classes
  • Finding All Matches
  • Using Modifiers
  • Matching and Replacing Patterns
• Chapter 15: Introducing jQuery
  • What is jQuery?
  • Incorporating jQuery
  • Selecting Page Elements
  • Event Handling
  • jQuery Effects
  • DOM Manipulation
  • Using Ajax
  • jQuery Plug-Ins
• Chapter 16: An OOP Primer
  • Fundamentals of OOP
  • Working with MySQL
  • The DateTime Class
  • The Standard PHP Library
  • Applying Internationalization
• Chapter 17: Example—Message Board
  • Making the Database
  • Writing the Templates
  • Creating the Index Page
  • Creating the Forum Page
  • Creating the Thread Page
  • Posting Messages
• Chapter 18: Example—User Registration
  • Creating the Templates
  • Writing the Configuration Scripts
  • Creating the Home Page
  • Registration
  • Activating an Account
  • Logging In and Logging Out
  • Password Management
• Chapter 19: Example—E-Commerce
  • Creating the Database
  • The Administrative Side
  • Creating the Public Template
  • The Product Catalog
  • The Shopping Cart
  • Recording the Orders
• Appendix A: Installation
  • Installation on Windows
  • Installation on Mac OS X
  • MySQL Permissions
  • Testing Your Installation
  • Configuring PHP
  • Server Configuration
• Appendix B: Best Practices
  • Comments
  • Optimization

So follow these instructions to make this work. If you have any questions or problems, you can post a comment at the end of this article. In order to pull this off, you will need an administrative password for your computer, a text editor, and the Terminal application. If the Terminal scares you, you probably shouldn’t do this.

I will also say in advance, though, that if you want the easiest, most reliable way to get HTTPS working on Mac OS X Leopard, the answer is either MAMP or XAMPP, both of which are all-in-one Mac OS X, Apache, PHP, and MySQL packages (aka MAMP). Both are excellent, supremely easy to install, and work without issue (that I know of). To be absolutely clear about my recommendation here, I now personally use either MAMP or XAMPP for all of my Web installs on Mac OS X Leopard and I’m quite capable of installing this stuff from the source code.

If you want a little background on this, part of the problem is that Leopard includes both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Apache. If you have a Mac Book Pro, then you have a 64-bit Intel processor, meaning Apache is running in 64-bit mode. Which means that everything must be compiled in 64-bit mode, which can be extremely problematic. (This may apply to other Macs; I don’t know off the top of my head which ones are using 64-bit Intel processors and which aren’t.) All that being said, here’s what I did…

Using my Mac Book Pro running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.6, I started by generating the certificate keys. To do so, I followed the instructions found on Apple’s Web site. Follow those instructions exactly, up to this line:

sudo apachectl stop

You should not execute that line, although it really doesn’t matter (it just stops the Apache Web server). At this point, in the /etc/apache2/ssl.key folder you should have a bunch of files, which are the keys and certificates and other junk created using those instructions.

Next, you’ll need to open /etc/apache2/httpd.conf in a text editor or IDE. In the Terminal, you can start by making a backup copy:

cd /etc/apache2
sudo cp httpd.conf httpd.conf.backup

Then you can open the file using a Terminal text editor like pico (although I prefer vi):

sudo pico httpd.conf

Of course you’ll need to enter the administrator’s password after the first time you use sudo (and after some minutes of inactivity).

To edit the file in a GUI text editor like BBEdit, TextWrangler, or TextMate, you can open the folder in the Finder by choosing Go > Go to Folder and entering /etc/apache2 in the prompt. This will open that folder in a Finder window, then you can drag the httpd.conf file onto the text editor to open it. (There are command line and other ways to open the file in a graphical app, but I’m trying to keep this relatively simple.)

In the httpd.conf file, find the line that says

LoadModule ssl_module libexec/apache2/mod_ssl.so

and make sure it does not have a # at the front of it. If it does, that means the line is commented-out, making that module inactive.

Go a little bit further down and remove the # from in front of:

Include /private/etc/apache2/extra/httpd-ssl.conf<

That line includes the SSL configuration file. You can now save httpd.conf (you’ll likely need to enter the admin password at the prompt).

Next, open httpd-ssl.conf, found in the /etc/apache2/extra folder. (By the way, /etc/apache2 and /private/etc/apache2 are two references to the same thing.)

In the httpd-ssl.conf file, you need to edit two lines, indicating the location of the certficate and key. These two lines are a few lines apart.

SSLCertificateFile /private/etc/apache2/ssl.key/server.crt

SSLCertificateKeyFile "/private/etc/apache2/ssl.key/server.key"

If you followed the instructions on Apple’s Web site, then you use exactly those values. If you used different names for the certificate or the key, or stored them in a different directory, you’ll need to change these values accordingly.

That’s it there. Now save httpd-ssl.conf and close it (again, you’ll likely need to enter the admin’s password).

Now you can test how it worked. To do so, go to the Terminal and type:

sudo apachectl configtest

If it says Syntax OK, you’re good to go. If it gives an error, make a note of what it is and search the Web or post a question here.

If you got the Syntax OK message, you just need to restart Apache to make the changes take effect. If Apache is running, you can enter this at the Terminal:

sudo apachectl graceful

If Apache isn’t running, enter

sudo apachectl stop

Or you can use the System Preferences > Sharing pane to start and stop Web Sharing.

Next, open your Web browser and go to https://localhost (note the “S” after http). Depending upon your browser, you’re most likely going to get an error message indicating that it’s not a real, valid, or secure certificate. That’s fine. You just need to tell the browser to trust that certificate. On Firefox 3.0.7, I clicked the link that said Or you can add an exception. Then I clicked Add Exception… Then clicked Get Certificate and Confirm Security Exception. The first two figures show steps 2 and 4. On Safari 3.2.1, I clicked Show Certificate then checked Always trust… and clicked Continue in the next prompt (see the last two figures).

So that’s what worked for me. Hopefully this will work for you, should you decide to go this route.