Practical PHP and MySQL(R): Building Eight Dynamic Web Applications (Negus Live Linux Series)

527 Pages·2006·6.25 MB·English

by  Jono Bacon

Practical PHP
and MySQL
®
N E G U S L I V E L I N U X S E R I E S
Your practical, hands-on guides to getting
real results with free software
Books in the Negus Live Linux Series encourage and challenge
you to advance in the free software world. Boot the live DVD or
CD that comes with each book and watch the Linux system,
applications, and content described in the book come to life
before your eyes.
Start as a novice by trying out examples and finish as a profes-
sional, mastering the many topics covered in the series, from
building PHP/MySQL sites to customizing live CDs and more.
When you are finished, you will know how to use, customize, and
rebuild that free and open source software yourself.
Overseeing the series is Christopher Negus, bestselling author
of the Red Hat Linux Bible series, Linux Toys series, and the
signature book for this series, Live Linux CDs.
N E G U S L I V E L I N U X S E R I E S
Practical PHP
and MySQL
®
Building Eight Dynamic
Web Applications
Jono Bacon
Upper Saddle River, NJ ■Boston■Indianapolis■San Francisco
New York ■Toronto ■Montreal■London■Munich■Paris■Madrid
Cape Town ■Sydney■Tokyo ■Singapore■Mexico City
Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed
as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and the publisher was aware of a trade-
mark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters or in all capitals.
The author and publisher have taken care in the preparation of this book, but make no expressed or
implied warranty of any kind and assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. No liability is
assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of the use of the
information or programs contained herein.
The publisher offers excellent discounts on this book when ordered in quantity for bulk purchases
or special sales, which may include electronic versions and/or custom covers and content particular
to your business, training goals, marketing focus, and branding interests. For more information,
please contact:
U.S. Corporate and Government Sales
[phone]
[e-mail]
For sales outside the United States, please contact:
International Sales
[e-mail]
Visit us on the Web: www.prenhallprofessional.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bacon, Jono.
Practical PHP and MySQL : building eight dynamic web applications / Jono Bacon.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-13-223997-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. PHP (Computer program language) 2. MySQL
(Electronic resource) 3. Web site development. I. Title.
TK5105.888.B325 2007
005.13’3—dc22
2006027701
Copyright © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is protected by
copyright, and permission must be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibited reproduction,
storage in a retrieval system, or transmission in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or likewise. For information regarding permissions, write to:
Pearson Education, Inc.
Rights and Contracts Department
75 Arlington Street, Suite 300
Boston, MA 02116
Fax: [phone]
ISBN 0-13-223997-3
Text printed in the United States on recycled paper at R. R. Donnelley in Crawfordsville, Indiana.
First printing: November 2006
To my family for their never-ending support…
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xii
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
A Different Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
What You Need to Use This Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Onward. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
CHAPTER 1 A New Approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
The Technology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
How the Dynamic Web Works. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
CHAPTER 2 Getting Started with PHP and MySQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Setting Up PHP and MySQL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Getting Started with PHP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Rolling in MySQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Connecting to MySQL in PHP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
vii
viii Contents
CHAPTER 3 Running the Projects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
About the Disc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Running the Applications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Using XAMPP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
CHAPTER 4 Building a Weblog. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Project Overview: Blogtastic Use Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Building the Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Starting to Code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Viewing Specific Entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Building the Category Browser. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Don’t Just Let Anyone Log In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Rolling Your Own Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Creating New Blog Entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Update a Blog Entry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
CHAPTER 5 Discussion Forums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Under the Hood. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Building Your Own Forums. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Before You Begin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Creating the Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Creating the Site Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Displaying the Forums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Managing User Logins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Posts and Replies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Creating Administrator-Specific Pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
CHAPTER 6 Creating a Shopping Cart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Project Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Building the Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Starting to Code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Managing User Logins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Displaying and Selecting Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Checking It Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Administrator Pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Contents ix
CHAPTER 7 Building an Online Auction Site. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Project Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Building the Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Starting to Code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Displaying Auction Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Dealing with Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Adding an Item. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
Processing Auctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
Scheduling the Page to Be Run. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
CHAPTER 8 Creating a Web-Based Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Project Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Building the Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
Starting to Code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Viewing Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
CHAPTER 9 FAQ Content Management System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Project Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
Building the Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
Starting to Code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
Displaying Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Dealing with Logins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Adding and Moderating Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Managing Subjects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
Managing Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360
Subject Ownership. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376
CHAPTER 10 Building a Re-Usable Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
Project Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
Building the Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381
Using Directories Intelligently. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
Starting to Code: Building the Backbone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
Downloading Releases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393
Viewing Screenshots. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
Available Projects Viewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397