How to Use This Book

This book is in the unique position of being a combination of a reference manual and an instructional text. Although it is not a complete reference, it does cover previously undocumented material, and supplements the documentation for many functions. And even though it is not an instructional text, reading this book will make you a better programmer, and give you a more solid approach to problem solving.

This book should not be your only reference for PHP, but rather it should be a supplement. If you are looking for a printed reference, I highly recommend Leon Atkinson's Core PHP , published by Prentice Hall, and Rasmus Lerdorf's PHP: Pocket Reference , published by O'Reilly.

On the flip side, this book should not be your introduction to PHP. This book assumes a basic level of competence in and understanding of the PHP language. If you're looking for a good introduction to PHP, check out PHP Fast & Easy Web Development by Julie Meloni.

This book has no logical progression, so you can pick it up at any recipe and it will make as much sense as if you had started at the beginning. This is a cookbook, so when you need to know how do to something, you should just look up the appropriate recipe (either in the Table of Contents or the index) and turn to the appropriate page.