Learning PHP 7

Book excerpt: Learn the art of PHP programming through this example-rich book filled to the brim with tutorials every PHP developer needs to know About This Book Set up the PHP environment and get started with web programming Leverage the potential of PHP for server-side programming, memory management, and object-oriented programming (OOP) This book is packed with real-life examples to help you implement the concepts as you learn Who This Book Is For If you are a web developer or programmer who wants to create real-life web applications using PHP 7, or a beginner who wants to get started with PHP 7 programming, this book is for you. Prior knowledge of PHP, PHP 7, or programming is not mandatory. What You Will Learn Set up a server on your machine with PHP Use PHP syntax with the built-in server to create apps Apply the OOP paradigm to PHP to write richer code Use MySQL to manage data in your web applications Create a web application from scratch using MVC Add tests to your web application and write testable code Use an existing PHP framework to build and manage your applications Build REST APIs for your PHP applications Test the behavior of web applications with Behat In Detail 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. Style and approach This book begins with the basics that all PHP developers use every day and then dives deep into detailed concepts and tricks to help you speed through development. You will be able to learn the concepts by performing practical tasks and implementing them in your daily activities, all at your own pace.