PHP

PHP vs. Java: Better Programming Platforms for Seamless Web Development

The task of choosing the best tech stack on which to launch your online portal can be quite daunting. Java is a client-based language whereas PHP is a server-side scripting platform. Hence, these two have their own pros and cons. Let's explore each of these languages and their unique features.

How Laravel Speeds Up App Development

Laravel is an open-source PHP framework for creating web applications more quickly than developing a web app from scratch. Rob Gravelle presents two ways to work with Laravel: first, on its own, then within the Laravel Homestead Virtual Machine environment.

7 Ways to Start Learning JavaScript as a WordPress Developer

See why, if you are looking to become a successful WordPress developer, you must learn how to use JavaScript.

Making the Switch from PhpExcel to PhpSpreadsheet

The PhpExcel library has been superseded by the PhpSpreadsheet library. Rob Gravelle provides an overview of PhpSpreadsheet and covers how it differs from its predecessor.

Tame Unwieldy Lists with the jQuery Autocomplete Widget

Rob Gravelle shows you how to employ the jQuery UI Autocomplete widget to choose from a list of restaurants that is fetched from the server at runtime.

Create a File Uploader in WordPress

Many WordPress sites include file upload fields in registration and data import forms. Learn how to add a file upload form to a WordPress page that is processed by a custom plugin on the server.

Export Data from Your Website as an Excel Spreadsheet

Excel is one of the most popular formats for viewing and working with tabular data. Rob Gravelle demonstrates how to use PHPExcel to dump some web domain statistics into a spreadsheet and serve it to the client.

Fetch Cross-domain Content Using a PHP Proxy

The same-origin policy prevents scripts from accessing data that is served from a different domain. Rob Gravelle explains one workaround that utilizes a local proxy.

Referencing the jQuery Store Locator from Your Web Pages

In the "Configure Location Data and the Google Maps API for the jQuery Store Locator" tutorial, we extracted location data from our MySQL database as JSON and set up a free Google Maps API account. In today's follow-up, Rob Gravelle shows us how to construct a search for nearby toy stores using the jQuery Store Locator plugin.

Configure Location Data and the Google Maps API for the jQuery Store Locator

Rob Gravelle shows us how to prep our location data by exporting it from a MySQL database as JSON, as well as how to set up a free Google Maps API account.

Using the WordPress Theme Customization API

Learn how to easily create custom theme configuration options that can be changed through the WordPress admin panel.

Switch Your WordPress Site to PHP 7 for Increased Performance

Upon testing, Caleb Boylan was surprised to see that there are negligible differences in the servers running the two newest WordPress versions (no visible impact on CPU or RAM). The much more interesting performance gains were actually from the move to PHP 7.

Using Custom Post Types in WordPress

Learn why custom post types make WordPress suitable for creating any type of Web site.

Create an HTML5 Initializr-based Subscription Page in Aptana Studio 3

Initializr is an HTML5 templates generator that customizes HTML5 Boilerplate. In this tutorial, we'll employ Initializr to build a single page Web app that submits the user's email to a server-side PHP script for the purposes of subscribing to an email newsletter.

Parsing Atom Feeds using XPath

The Atom Syndication format is built on the XML standard so that it may be displayed directly in modern browsers or parsed by scripts and software. Rob Gravelle explains how to apply the xpath XML extraction language to Atom feeds using PHP in order to target specific content.

Show Progress Report for Long-running PHP Scripts

Rob Gravelle demonstrates how to use Server-Side Events (SSEs) to provide feedback and a progress bar for long-running server-side processes.

The Word of the Day Is "Nonce"

You may not have heard of nonces yet, but they can be of great use in securing Web applications. Rob Gravelle shows how they work and their usage in protecting against malicious or duplicate requests that could cause undesired consequences to your web site.

Binding PHP Functions to WordPress's Ajax Handler

As seen in Rob Gravelle's Referencing WordPress's Native Ajax Handler in JavaScript article, Ajax requests go through the wp-admin/admin-ajax.php script. That article presented how to add our JavaScript files to the page using the wp_enqueue_script() and wp_localize_script() functions. Today's follow-up will describe how to hook your server-side callbacks to the admin-ajax.php script.

Create a Bi-directional Connection to a PHP Server using HTML5 WebSockets

Before HTML5 introduced WebSockets, you had to rely on specialized technologies like Java applets (remember those?!) or, more recently, Flash. In this article, we'll be utilizing WebSockets to write a kind of automated web chat, where the other party is a machine of great intellect, called "Multivac", named after the Chatbot demo of the Google phpwebsocket project.

Object Oriented Programming in PHP: Class 2 - Uses Of Objects

In our previous class, we explored the very basic principles of OOP. Today we are going to explore thee concepts with a little more clarity, and see precisely how we might use OOP to our advantage by creating code that is not only organized, but works well.

Object Oriented Programming in PHP - Class 1: Principles

In this class we will explore the essential principles of object oriented programming (OOP) with PHP. Our goal is to define what object oriented programming is, and what the advantages and disadvantages of using it are.

Ten Awesome Things Most People Don't Know About PHP

We all know the magic tricks, we all know the cool little functions. We all know the way to make dates look cool and numbers look awesome. But there are things most people don't think about, and I'm one of them. When I started writing this article I did a little research and found a few things that will also make me change the way I use PHP, and why I use.

Web Developer Class: Building a Twitter Feed with PHP

In today's world of social networking there will come a time that someone asks you to do Twitter integration for their website. This tutorial will walk you through the process, and includes source code!

Web Developer Class: Cron and PHP

PHP is a powerful language by any standard, and it provides many tools that are very distinct and suited to specific tasks. Today we are going to look at the CRON TOOL - and more specifically how to use it. There are many cron tools to help with the scheduling of tasks, but as this article is developer oriented, we'll investigate from a command-line \ crontabs perspective.

Principles Of MVC for PHP Developers

In this article I will attempt to explain everything you need to know about MVC--the Model View Controller-- in the simplest possible way, from the perspective of a PHP developer.

Principles Of Object Oriented Programming in PHP

Object Oriented Programming, or OOP, refers to the method of programming that invokes the use of classes to organize the data and structure of an application. In this article we are going explore exactly what OOP is in relation to PHP, and look at a few things you should remember about it as well. We'll end of with a simple example of how to use it.

Top 10 PHP Tips for Developers

I have always wanted to write an article like this, because I think about it all the time - what 10 things would I deem the most important to pass on to someone else? Well, after literally years of thought I think I have come up with the best list that I can think of. So, without further a do, let's get to it.

Top 10 Web Developer Questions About PHP

As a web developer begins to delve into more complex development tasks, PHP is often their chosen language of choice. We've put together a list of the top 10 questions asked about the PHP programming language to get you started!

Web Developer How To: Upload Images Using PHP

Web developers who are just getting started often ask, "How can I upload images using PHP?" In this tutorial we are going to look at the basics, and show you how you can install such a script on your website.

Creating and Installing Your Own URL Shortening Service

URL shortening services such as tinyurl.com, bit.ly, and poprl are very popular and have a wide array of uses across the Web. This article shows you how to install a popular URL shortening script on your own website.

PHP Mailer Script Step by Step

If you look around there are many different mailer scripts out there. Some are really complicated and hard to understand whereas some are not. Follow me through this tutorial, as I break a good script down so it's not only easy to understand, but easy to use!

Databases in PHP - MySQL in PHP - Running Some Queries

Continuing the process of adding access to a MySQL Database to our HTML pages, we now need to interact with the database we previously selected from the server to which we also previously connected.

PHP Tutorial - Databases in PHP - MySQL in PHP - Picking a DB

We're in the process of adding access to a MySQL Database to our HTML page and now we need to pick out the database we want to use and make sure that everything is properly available.

PHP Tutorial - Databases in PHP - MySQL in PHP - hooking up

Having studied database basics and taken a look at the Structured Query Language, it's time to dig in. Now we take a look at the use of MySQL in PHP

PHP Tutorial - Databases in PHP, SQL Basics

Most of today's database systems use the Structured Query Language (SQL) in a more or less standard form.  The basics of SQL are surprisingly simple.  Here's an overview to get you going.

PHP Tutorial - Databases in PHP, An Introduction

Adding databases to your website opens up a whole new world of possibilities -- and it's so easy in PHP! What are databases and how can they be used? Read on!

PHP Tutorial: Saving Sessions in a File

How to save session information from one session to another

PHP Tutorial: Sessions

Sessions are a method storing and tracking data

HTML Goodies - PHP Tutorial

HTML Goodies - PHP Tutorial

HTML Goodies - PHP Tutorial

HTML Goodies: PHP Tutorial

Introduction

HTML Goodies: PHP Tutorial - Duplicate

Your First Page With PHP Code

PHP Tutorial: Cookies

Do you know how to make a decent batch of cookies?

PHP Tutorial: Error Handling

Every programmer wants to practice effective error handling

PHP Tutorial: Expressions and Operators

Learn the ins and outs of Expressions and Operators

PHP Tutorial: File System

Using the File System

PHP Tutorial: First Page

Your first page with PHP code

PHP Tutorial: Functions

All the dirty laundry about Functions

PHP Tutorial: Functions, Cont.

Even more information about Functions

PHP Tutorial: Introduction

This PHP Tutorial Series starts with an introduction to PHP.

PHP Tutorial: Logic Flow

Do you want to learn about logic flow?

PHP Tutorial: Order Form

We Build a Simple Order Form

PHP Tutorial: Passing Data

All about passing data to and from Functions

PHP Tutorial: Processing the Form

Now it's time to process the order form

PHP Tutorial: Uploading Files

We build a file upload form

PHP Tutorial: Variables

Let's learn a little about Variables

So You Want PHP, Huh?

Tutorial: Installing Apache and PHP Under Win32

Nothing can stop you now! Read this tutorial for the inside scoop on setting up Apache and PHP on a computer that is running Microsoft Windows!

An introduction to the ADOdb class library for PHP, Part 2

Ian Gilfillan continues his series on the ADOdb class library for PHP. This month he examines some of the more advanced features such as, caching queries, getting more information about your results, limiting your results and transactions.

An introduction to the ADOdb class library for PHP

A common beginner (and not so beginner) mistake is to develop an application without any consideration of the future. All too often, applications remain tied to the wrong database, inflexible and not performing optimally. That's where using a well-designed database class library can make all the difference. This month Ian Gilfillan gets you up and running with a brief introduction to ADOdb, with more detail to follow in subsequent articles.

PHP and Working with Databases (for the Lazy Sod)

Justin Vincent takes an in-depth look at the benefits of atomic operations, database abstraction and the use of classes, all in the hope of helping the reader realize the dream of being a really 'lazy sod' (albeit a successful one) when it comes to databases and PHP.