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Installing PHP 5 under Windows

PHP 5 was officially released on the 13^th July 2004, so now is a great time to start working with the new version. In this article Allan will show you how to install PHP 5 on Windows using both the Apache and the IIS web servers.

Since, at the time of writing, there isn't an installer version of PHP 5 available, Allan is going to show you how to install PHP manually from the downloadable Zip archive.

This approach is not only straightforward, but is actually also preferable, as it allows you to customise your PHP installation for your system. Allan will show you the options and take you through the changes – such as enabling MySQL support (not automatic in PHP 5).

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PHP and XML: Part 1

Today sees the start of a new series, with Gareth embarking on a set of articles that are going to show how to use PHP and XML together.

In this first article Gareth is going to run through the theory of XML, looking at creating an XML document and the structure of an XML document. By the end of the tutorial he puts the theory into practice by creating an example XML document.

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PHP Back to Basics #11: Working with Files

  In this tutorial, Gareth's going to take a detailed look at working with files in PHP. This can make a useful alternative to always using a database to persist your site data. For example if you're coding up a simple page counter, using a file on the server can make an extremely effective low overhead solution.

 This article covers:

• How to read and write files on the server (including setting permissions)
• Reading the contents of directories
• Checking whether files exist
• How to delete files from the server.

 

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BiffWriter for Dummies (PHP to Excel III)

In my previous article I introduced a PHP class called BiffWriter that very neatly lets you write your data to a native Excel document without having to first go through a CSV file, or try to manipulate Excel directly through some kind of COM trickery. We alluded to the fact that BiffWriter could do some fairly neat things, but only touched the surface by using it to write simple tabular data into an Excel document.

 

We think this is the kind of tool that might really help you out of a corner in some circumstances, so in today's article, we're going to take a look at how to use some cool features of BiffWriter to build some fairly complex documents.

 

Before you get all excited and dive into the article, be warned that if you intend to use this class in a commercial application (in other words a script for a client) then you're going to have to fork out a licensing fee. Take a look at the BiffWriter web site for details on what it's going to set you back. For non-commercial and personal use you're free to use it.

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PHP Back to Basics #10: String Handling in PHP

Ever had problems taking user input, submitting it to a database then not getting back the result you expect?

 

If you have, then this tutorial might make your life a whole lot easier. In this next installment of PHP Basics, Gareth takes us through some of the PHP string handling commands that can help you manage, and format, user input and database output.

 

You'll learn how to work with variable capitalization, input of unexpected characters that can affect your carefully constructed SQL and how to extract portions of text from a record.

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PHP Back to Basics #9: Working with Objects

In this tutorial, we look at what classes and objects are, and how they can be used to make your code more organized, with the benefit that they can easily be shared between people and projects. We then see how a class is defined, and how to add properties and methods to the class, as well as how to use a constructor function which is run automatically when a new object is created from the class.

 

Finally, we create an example class that can be used to easily generate HTML tables, so you only have to setup the appearance of the table such as its width, border etc, and the class does the hard work of actually generating the HTML code to create the table.

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PHP Basics: Cookies and Sessions

In this tutorial we're going to look at how to use cookies and session variables in PHP, to allow you to save data for the user as they move between pages. This can be used for a number of different uses such as for creating a log-in system to secure your site, or saving data for a user's shopping cart, for example.

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Free! ASP.NET Cookie Login

The article teaches you how to create a user login using the Dreamweaver MX ASP.NET/VB or C# server models. It also shows you how to protect a page and logout a user.
I don't think there is any article online that shows users how to create a login using the ASP.NET server model so enjoy and spread the word!!

This article was originally published on DMXFire.com and is copyright Omar Elbaga, reproduced with kind permission.

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PHP Basics 7: Connecting to a MySQL Database

Dreamweaver MX contains a number of server behaviors for connecting to a MySQL database and performing database operations, these can be quite limiting and if you want to build a truly powerful website you really need to be able to hand code the database operations yourself. Once you can do this all limits are removed and you're no longer limited in what you can achieve!

 

 This tutorial covers:

Building a Database 
Creating a table - users 
Adding Data to the Users table 
Working with a MySQL database 
Connecting to the MySQL Server 
Select Database 
Execute MySQL Query 
Close Server Connection 
PHP Commands for Working with the MySQL database 
Connecting to the MySQL Server 
Select Database 
Execute SQL Query 
Close Server Connection
Working Examples 
Reading Records from a Database 
Adding Records to a Database 
Modifying Records in a Database 
Deleting a Record from the Database

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Free! A send-a-friend application with ASP Smart Mailer

The great thing with DMXzone's extensions is that they make the tedious work of developing advanced functions easy, allowing you to concentrate on the exciting aspects of the job.

In this free tutorial, Matt Machell shows how to use the DMXzone ASP Smart Mailer to add a "send-a-friend" link to your web pages, allowing a user to alert a friend to an interesting page by clicking a link, entering an email address and the DMXzone extension and your web server do the rest. It'll have you up and running this functionality on any page, on any number of sites, in practically no time at all!

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PHP Basics: email contact forms

Have you ever wanted a contact form on your website that will automatically email you, instead of leaving a mailto: address? Or maybe a form that the user controls via radio buttons that is directed to the correct person by the logic?

It's easy in PHP, and Gareth shows you how in this article, going through every step - setting up the mail headers, the forms and the PHP code.

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PHP Basics: Forms, GET and POST

In this beginner's tutorial, Gareth shows the options available in HTML forms via Dreamweaver and how to retrieve data passed via a form through the GET and POST methods, and discusses the difference between these different ways of passing user data. Read More