Chapter 11. Extended Topics

This chapter represents the last of the book's "content," in which the primary focus will be on discussing new information (the remaining three chapters will deal with specific applications). The extended topics covered here are not applicable to every Web application but are certainly worth your consideration.

First up is the relatively easy task of handling file uploads with PHP. After that, I'll demonstrate how you can use PHP and JavaScript together. Third on the list is output buffering, which controls when data is sent to the Web browser.

From there I head back into the world of MySQL, starting with the set of new Improved MySQL Extension functions. These have been added to PHP in version 5 and were specifically made for working with MySQL version 4.1 and above. Then, a couple of recent additions to the MySQL software are covered, specifically transactions and prepared statements.

This chapter concludes with an introduction and demonstration of PEAR. PEAR is a special framework of PHP code that can save you lots of development and debugging time.

Not every application you write will require all of these features. In fact, the special server requirements of some of them constitute a limitation. But being aware of their existence and having an understanding of the syntax will be a great asset when the time does come to incorporate any of these concepts.