Audience

This book has been designed to be of maximum use for existing PHP developers looking for a complete, compact, and portable reference guide to the language. If this is your first time using PHP, but you have experience using similar languages such as Perl, Python, or C, then you should be able to treat the book as a learning guide.

As any PHP programmer will tell you, the online PHP manual is of a very high standard. The aim of this book is not to compete with or replace the online manual. Although this book is designed to stand alone, you will find the topic grouping, tips, and examples here complement the online guide.