Essential PHP Tools

THis INTRODUCTION lays out who the book is written for, provides an overview of what is covered, and gives some background details on a package management utility you'll use to install many of the add-ons covered in the book. Who This Book Is For Although PHP has a lot of built-in functionality, many common Web program ming tasks are simpler with add-on modules and packages. This book is for you if you are looking for an easier way to do these kinds of tasks with PHP: • Access a database. • Generate robust Web forms. • Use a page templating system. • Create or parse XML documents. • Request or serve XML-RPC or SOAP methods. • Send HTML or multipart e-mail messages. • Authenticate users. • Inspect your scripts with a debugger. • Boost server performance without rewriting any code. This book assumes you have a basic knowledge of PHP programming: You know how to perform tasks such as include files, write functions, create objects, and look in $_REQUEST, $_GET, or $_POST to find submitted form data.