Build a Computer from Scratch

There are many reasons for serving up dynamic content from a web site: to offer an online shopping site, create customized information pages for users, or just manage a large volume of content through a database. Anyone with a modest knowledge of HTML and web site management can learn to create dynamic content through the PHP programming language and the MySQL database. This book gives you the background and tools to do the job safely and reliably.

Web Database Applications with PHP and MySQL, Second Edition thoroughly reflects the needs of real-world applications. It goes into detail on such practical issues as validating input (do you know what a proper credit card number looks like?), logging in users, and using templates to give your dynamic web pages a standard look.

But this book goes even further. It shows how JavaScript and PHP can be used in tandem to make a user's experience faster and more pleasant. It shows the correct way to handle errors in user input so that a site looks professional. It introduces the vast collection of powerful tools available in the PEAR repository and shows how to use some of the most popular tools.

Even while it serves as an introduction to new programmers, the book does not omit critical tasks that web sites require. For instance, every site that allows updates must handle the possibility of multiple users accessing data at the same time. This book explains how to solve the problem in detail with locking.

Through a sophisticated sample application--Hugh and Dave's Wine Store--all the important techniques of dynamic content are introduced. Good design is emphasized, such as dividing logic from presentation. The book introduces PHP 5 and MySQL 4.1 features, while providing techniques that can be used on older versions of the software that are still in widespread use.

This new edition has been redesigned around the rich offerings of PEAR. Several of these, including the Template package and the database-independent query API, are fully integrated into examples and thoroughly described in the text. Topics include:

• Installation and configuration of Apache, MySQL, and PHP on Unix®, Windows®, and Mac OS® X systems
• Introductions to PHP, SQL, and MySQL administration
• Session management, including the use of a custom database for improved efficiency
• User input validation, security, and authentication
• The PEAR repository, plus details on the use of PEAR DB and Template classes
• Production of PDF reports

In this book, Steven Feuerstein, widely recognized as one of the world's experts on the Oracle PL/SQL language, distills his many years of programming, writing, and teaching about PL/SQL into a set of PL/SQL language "best practices"--rules for writing code that is readable, maintainable, and efficient. Too often, developers focus on simply writing programs that run without errors--and ignore the impact of poorly written code upon both system performance and their ability (and their colleagues' ability) to maintain that code over time.

Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices is a concise, easy-to-use reference to Feuerstein's recommendations for excellent PL/SQL coding. It answers the kinds of questions PL/SQL developers most frequently ask about their code:

• How should I format my code?
• What naming conventions, if any, should I use?
• How can I write my packages so they can be more easily maintained?
• What is the most efficient way to query information from the database?
• How can I get all the developers on my team to handle errors the same way?

The book contains 120 best practices, divided by topic area. It's full of advice on the program development process, coding style, writing SQL in PL/SQL, data structures, control structures, exception handling, program and package construction, and built-in packages. It also contains a handy, pull-out quick reference card. As a helpful supplement to the text, code examples demonstrating each of the best practices are available on the O'Reilly web site.

Oracle PL/SQL Best Practices is intended as a companion to O'Reilly's larger Oracle PL/SQL books. It's a compact, readable reference that you'll turn to again and again--a book that no serious developer can afford to be without.

If you're a programmer or database administrator who uses SQL in your day-to-day work, this popular pocket guide is the ideal on-the-job reference. You'll find many examples that address the language's complexity, along with key aspects of SQL used in IBM DB2 Release 9.7, MySQL 5.1, Oracle Database 11g Release 2, PostgreSQL 9.0, and Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Release 2.

SQL Pocket Guide describes how these database systems implement SQL syntax for querying, managing transactions, and making changes to data. It also shows how the systems use SQL functions, regular expression syntax, and type conversion functions and formats.

All example SQL statements in this book execute against a set of tables, with data that you can quickly download. The third edition covers important database changes, including:

• Oracle's support of the recursive WITH syntax, and addition of PIVOT and UNPIVOT operators
• Functions new to Oracle, such as LISTAGG, NTH_VALUE, and more
• PostgreSQL’s support of recursive WITH and some window functions
• DB2 syntax and datatypes, some compatible with Oracle
• MySQL features such as the TIMESTAMP type and the TO_SECONDS function

SQL (Structured Query Language) is a standard programming language for generating, manipulating, and retrieving information from a relational database. If you're working with a relational database--whether you're writing applications, performing administrative tasks, or generating reports--you need to know how to interact with your data. Even if you are using a tool that generates SQL for you, such as a reporting tool, there may still be cases where you need to bypass the automatic generation feature and write your own SQL statements.

To help you attain this fundamental SQL knowledge, look to Learning SQL, an introductory guide to SQL, designed primarily for developers just cutting their teeth on the language.

Learning SQL moves you quickly through the basics and then on to some of the more commonly used advanced features. Among the topics discussed:

• The history of the computerized database
• SQL Data Statements--those used to create, manipulate, and retrieve data stored in your database; example statements include select, update, insert, and delete
• SQL Schema Statements--those used to create database objects, such as tables, indexes, and constraints
• How data sets can interact with queries
• The importance of subqueries
• Data conversion and manipulation via SQL's built-in functions
• How conditional logic can be used in Data Statements

Put the power and flexibility of SQL to work. With Learning SQL you can master this important skill and know that the SQL statements you write are indeed correct.