Book Image

Learning PHP 7

By : Antonio L Zapata (GBP)
Book Image

Learning PHP 7

By: Antonio L Zapata (GBP)

Overview of this book

PHP is a great language for building web applications. It is essentially a server-side scripting language that is also used for general purpose programming. PHP 7 is the latest version with a host of new features, and it provides major backwards-compatibility breaks. This book begins with the fundamentals of PHP programming by covering the basic concepts such as variables, functions, class, and objects. You will set up PHP server on your machine and learn to read and write procedural PHP code. After getting an understanding of OOP as a paradigm, you will execute MySQL queries on your database. Moving on, you will find out how to use MVC to create applications from scratch and add tests. Then, you will build REST APIs and perform behavioral tests on your applications. By the end of the book, you will have the skills required to read and write files, debug, test, and work with MySQL.

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Learning PHP 7
Antonio L Zapata (GBP)
Mar, 2016 | 414 pages
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Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Learning PHP 7
Learning PHP 7
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewer
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Setting Up the Environment
Setting Up the Environment
Setting up the environment with Vagrant
Setting up the environment on OS X
Setting up the environment on Windows
Setting up the environment on Ubuntu
Summary
2
Web Applications with PHP
Web Applications with PHP
The HTTP protocol
Web applications
Web servers
Summary
3
Understanding PHP Basics
Understanding PHP Basics
PHP files
Variables
Operators
Working with strings
Arrays
PHP in web applications
Control structures
Functions
The filesystem
Summary
4
Creating Clean Code with OOP
Creating Clean Code with OOP
Classes and objects
Properties and methods visibility
Static properties and methods
Namespaces
Autoloading classes
Inheritance
Interfaces
Traits
Handling exceptions
Design patterns
Anonymous functions
Summary
5
Using Databases
Using Databases
Introducing databases
Schemas and tables
Keys and constraints
Inserting data
Querying data
Using PDO
Joining tables
Grouping queries
Updating and deleting data
Working with transactions
Summary
6
Adapting to MVC
Adapting to MVC
The MVC pattern
Using Composer
Working with requests
M for model
V for view
C for controller
Dependency injection
Summary
7
Testing Web Applications
Testing Web Applications
The necessity for tests
Integrating PHPUnit
Writing unit tests
Testing with doubles
Database testing
Test-driven development
Summary
8
Using Existing PHP Frameworks
Using Existing PHP Frameworks
Reviewing frameworks
Other features of frameworks
Types of frameworks
An overview of famous frameworks
The Laravel framework
The Silex microframework
Silex versus Laravel
Summary
9
Building REST APIs
Building REST APIs
Introducing APIs
Introducing REST APIs
The foundations of REST APIs
Using third-party APIs
The toolkit of the REST API developer
Best practices with REST APIs
Creating a REST API with Laravel
Testing your REST APIs
Summary
10
Behavioral Testing
Behavioral Testing
Behavior-driven development
BDD with Behat
Testing with a browser using Mink
Summary
Index
Index

Introducing APIs

API stands for Application Program Interface. Its goal is to provide an interface so that other programs can send commands that will trigger some process inside the application, possibly returning some output. The concept might seem a bit abstract, but in fact, there are APIs virtually in everything which is somehow related to computers. Let's see some real life examples:

  • Operating systems or OS, like Windows or Linux, are the programs that allow you to use computers. When you use any application from your computer, it most probably needs to talk to the OS in one way or another, for example by requesting a certain file, sending some audio to the speakers, and so on. All these interactions between the application and the OS are possible thanks to the APIs that the OS provides. In this way, the application need not interact with the hardware straight away, which is a very tiring task.

  • To interact with the user, a mobile application provides a GUI. The interface captures all...

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