MongoDB is an open source, non-relational database system designed to meet the needs of modern Web 2.0 applications. It is currently being used by some of the most popular websites in the world. This book introduces MongoDB to the web developer who has some background building web applications using PHP. This book teaches what MongoDB is, how it is different from relational database management systems, and when and why developers should use it instead of a relational database for storing data.
You will learn how to build PHP applications that use MongoDB as the data backend; solve common problems, such as HTTP session handling, user authentication, and so on.
You will also learn to solve interesting problems with MongoDB, such as web analytics with MapReduce, storing large files in GridFS, and building location-aware applications using Geospatial indexing.
Finally, you will learn how to optimize MongoDB to boost performance, improve security, and ensure data durability. The book will demonstrate the use of some handy GUI tools that makes database management easier.
Chapter 1, Getting Started with MongoDB introduces the underlying concepts of MongoDB, provides a step-by-step guide on how to install and run a MongoDB server on a computer, and make PHP and MongoDB talk to each other.
Chapter 2, Building your First MongoDB Powered Web App shows you how to build a simple blogging web application using PHP and MongoDB. Through the examples in this chapter, you will learn how to create/read/update/delete data in MongoDB using PHP.
Chapter 3, Building a Session Manager shows you how PHP and MongoDB can be used to handle HTTP sessions. You will build a stand-alone session manager module and learn how to perform user authentication/authorization using the module.
Chapter 4, Aggregation Queries introduces MapReduce, a powerful functional programming paradigm and shows you how it can be used to perform aggregation queries in MongoDB.
Chapter 5, Web Analytics using MongoDB shows you how you can store website traffic data in MongoDB in real time and use MapReduce to extract important analytics.
Chapter 6, Using MongoDB with Relational Databases explores use cases where MongoDB can be used alongside a relational database. You will learn how to archive data in MongoDB, use it for caching expensive query results, and store non-structured metadata about different objects in the domain.
Chapter 7, Handling Large Files with GridFS introduces GridFS, a specification in MongoDB that allows us to store large files in the database.
Chapter 8, Building Location-aware Web Applications with MongoDB and PHP, uses PHP, HTML5, JavaScript, and the Geospatial Indexing feature of MongoDB to build a web application that helps you find restaurants close to your current location.
Chapter 9, Improving Security and Performance shows you how to boost query performance using indexes, use built-in tools for analyzing and fine-tuning queries, improve database security, and ensure data durability.
Chapter 10, Easy MongoDB Administration with RockMongo and phpMoAdmin demonstrates the use of a couple of PHP-based GUI tools for managing MongoDB server—RockMongo and phpMoAdmin.
Apache web server (or IIS if you are on Windows) running PHP 5.2.6 or higher.
A web browser that supports the W3C Geolocation API (Internet Explorer 9.0+, Google Chrome 5.0+, Firefox 3.5+ or Safari 5.0+).
Chapter 6, Using MongoDB with Relational Databases requires that you have MySQL installed on your machine.
This book assumes that you have some background in web application development using PHP, HTML, and CSS. Some of the chapters require that you know JavaScript and are familiar with AJAX. Having a working knowledge of using a relational database system, such as MySQL will help you grasp some of the concepts quicker, but it is not strictly mandatory. No prior knowledge of MongoDB is required.
In this book, you will find several headings appearing frequently.
To give clear instructions of how to complete a procedure or task, we use:
1. Action 1
2. Action 2
3. Action 3
Instructions often need some extra explanation so that they make sense, so they are followed with:
This heading explains the working of tasks or instructions that you have just completed.
You will also find some other learning aids in the book, including:
These are short multiple choice questions intended to help you test your own understanding.
These set practical challenges and give you ideas for experimenting with what you have learned.
You will also find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "The value for the first field, _id, is autogenerated."
A block of code is set as follows:
try {
$mongo = new Mongo($options=array('timeout'=> 100))
} catch(MongoConnectionException $e) {
die("Failed to connect to database ".$e->getMessage());
}
When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
{
_id : ObjectId("4dcd2abe5981aec801010000"),
title : "The only perfect site is hind-site",
content : "Loren ipsum dolor sit amet…",
saved_at : ISODate('2011-05-16T18:42:57.949Z'),
author_id : ObjectId("4dd491695072aefc456c9aca")
}
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
>db.movies.find({"genre":"sci-fi"})
{ "_id" : ObjectId("4db439153ec7b6fd1c9093ec"), "name" : "Source Code", "genre" : "sci-fi", "year" : 2011 }
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Click on the Delete link on any one article."
Note
Tips and tricks appear like this.
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