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This book is divided into six parts, which represents the logical progression of writing web applications.

Part I, "The Basics of PHP," covers the PHP language itself, starting with descriptions and discussions of the most basic types of language. Part I then moves on to functions, code structure, and object-oriented programmingbefore finishing off with a discussion of arrays and strings.

Part II, "Database Basics," covers databases, starting with terminology and progressing through design and data definition. Part II finishes by describing the use of databases and tables, ranging from the most basic queries to transactions and functions.

Part III, "Planning Web Applications," takes a step back from coding to discuss the design of your web applications. Many people get so involved in writing their code that they forget to sit down and actually think about it in advance. These chapters (hopefully) give you something to think about as you begin. This part also focuses heavily on securing your applications, as it is not something to be taken lightly.

Part IV, "Implementing Your Web Application," discusses the more advanced language features and concepts required to move beyond simple PHP and databases into writing web applications, covering topics such as errors, sessions, and XMLincluding plenty of sample code.

Part V, "Sample Projects and Further Ideas," presents three full web application samples that start with a simple appointment management system, progress through a web log system, and finish with an ecommerce store. These samples incorporate much of what the book has covered and are designed to be robust. Instead of killing large numbers of trees and listing all the code for the samples, you can download and run them. The book shows you only the most salient sections of the code and leaves you to download and run them in completion.

Part VI, "Appendixes," discusses the installation of the necessary software to run your web applications and how to perform various database actions on different database engines, and suggests some additional reading material.