Table Of ContentPHP 7 Programming
Cookbook
Over 80 recipes that will take your PHP 7 web
development skills to the next level!
Doug Bierer
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
PHP 7 Programming Cookbook
Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing
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First published: August 2016
Production reference: 1260816
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ISBN 978-1-78588-344-6
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Credits
Author Project Coordinator
Doug Bierer Suzanne Coutinho
Reviewers Proofreader
Salvatore Pappalardo Safis Editing
Vincenzo Provenza
Indexer
Commissioning Editor Rekha Nair
Kunal Parikh
Production Coordinator
Acquisition Editor Melwyn Dsa
Kirk D'costa
Cover Work
Content Development Editor Melwyn Dsa
Merint Thomas Mathew
Technical Editor
Madhunikita Sunil Chindarkar
Copy Editor
Safis Editing
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Foreword
With PHP 7, we get a host of new features and improvements, such as abstract syntax tree,
throwable errors, scalar type hints, return type declarations, speed improvements, and so
much more.
The question facing PHP developers these days is not "Should I use the new features?", but
"How do I implement these features to build better applications faster?"
I remember building applications in PHP 4. It was a simpler time for PHP developers as it
could be intermingled with HTML and everything was in one file. Instead of frameworks, we
had libraries of functions that got included. Applications were basically just CRUD desktop
applications that we figured out how to shovel onto the web.
Application development has changed several times since then. New frameworks, such as
AJAX, PHPUnit, composer, and API-First, were introduced.
All of these things, and many others, have influenced how PHP developers build applications.
Today, you will be laughed out of a job if you have a paged-based application that mixed HTML
and PHP. So, what will you do? How will you build modern PHP applications and APIs? How will
you leverage all the new tools that PHP gives you to build faster, better, stronger applications?
I am so glad you asked.
My friend Doug Bierer has the answer for you. This isn't YAUT (Yet Another Useless Tome) of
information that you will put on a shelf and never use. The book you are holding in your hands
is destined to, quickly, be a part of your ducktape library. (Every developer has a ducktape
library. It is made up of those books you refer to so often that they are now held together by
ducktape.)
Doug takes the time to show you the new features that you need to understand, like so many
developer books out there. Where this book is different is that the author takes the time to
show you how to solve real-world problems using these new tools. Not only do you learn, but
you can immediately solve problems with what you learn.
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You don't have to be an expert in PHP to use advanced concepts. However, you do have
to learn, understand, and use these advanced concepts if you ever hope to grow as a
programmer. This book will help you down your path to becoming a better programmer.
Cal Evans
Nomad PHP
Nerd Herder for the World Wide Herd
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About the Author
Doug Bierer has been hooked on computers since his first program, written in Dartmouth
BASIC on a DEC PDP-8, in 1971. In his wide-ranging career, this author has been a
professional contract programmer since 1978, having written applications in BASIC, PL/I,
assembler, FORTH, C, C++, dBase/FoxBase/Clipper, Pascal, Perl, Java, and PHP. He deployed
his first website in 1993 while living in San Francisco. He speaks four languages, has traveled
extensively, and has lived in the USA, France, the Netherlands, England, Sweden, Scotland,
and Thailand. He also spent some years doing Linux system administration and TCP/IP
networking. He is also an accomplished musician (he has written over 60 songs) as well as a
writer, under the pen name of Douglas Alan.
Doug's own company is unlikelysource.com, which specializes in consulting, PHP programming,
website development, and training (primarily for Zend Technologies Ltd and Rogue Wave
Software Inc.
His works of fiction published on https://www.lulu.com/ are The End, And Then? and
Further Indications. Some of his technical works for O'Reilly Media are Learning PHP and
MySQL, Learning PHP Security, Learning MongoDB, and Learning Doctrine.
First and foremost, I would like to dedicate this book to my mother, Betty
Bierer, who passed away in May 2016. She encouraged me all my life, and
applauded my accomplishments (no matter how bad!). She attended all
my music concerts, bought all my CDs, and read all my books (even if she
did not understand them). I would also like to thank my long-suffering wife,
Siri, who patiently endured the hours it took me to write this book without
complaint. (She did, however, make threats if I agreed to take on another
one... negotiations are ongoing.) Finally, I would like to thank a number
of notables in the PHP community who let me bounce ideas off them or
offered inspiration. These include, Matthew Weir O'Phinney, Cal Evans, Daryl
Wood, Susie Pollock, Salvatore Pappalardo, Slavey Karadzhov, and Clark
Everetts.
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About the Reviewers
Salvatore Pappalardo, a tech geek from birth, has been a software engineer since 2002.
He loves "from scratch" development. He's a tech lover, sci-fi reader, movie enthusiast, and a
TED talks addict.
Vincenzo Provenza is a web developer with more than 5 years of experience with different
technologies and programming languages (mainly PHP and JavaScript). He loves to travel and
read.
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