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Learning PHP 7

By : Antonio L Zapata (GBP)

3.4 (10)

Learning PHP 7

3.4 (10)

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.

Preface

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Free Chapter

1. Setting Up the Environment

1. 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

2. Web Applications with PHP

The HTTP protocol

Web applications

Web servers

Summary

3. Understanding PHP Basics

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. Behavioral Testing

Behavior-driven development

BDD with Behat

Testing with a browser using Mink

Summary

Index

Index

Arrays

If you have some experience with other programming languages or data structures in general, you might be aware of two data structures that are very common and useful: lists and maps. A list is an ordered set of elements, whereas a map is a set of elements identified by keys. Let's see an example:

List: ["Harry", "Ron", "Hermione"]

Map: {
  "name": "James Potter",
  "status": "dead"
}

The first element is a list of names that contains three values: Harry, Ron, and Hermione. The second one is a map, and it defines two values: James Potter and dead. Each of these two values is identified with a key: name and status respectively.

In PHP, we do not have lists and maps; we have arrays. An array is a data structure that implements both, a list and a map.

Initializing arrays

You have different options for initializing an array. You can initialize an empty array, or you can initialize an array with data. There are different ways of writing the same data with arrays too. Let's see some examples...

CONTINUE READING

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Tech Concepts

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Programming languages

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