Designing PHP-Based Solutions: Best Practice

Designing PHP-Based Solutions: Best Practice - module H115

The PHP programmer needs multiple skills. He needs to be a programmer, a graphic artist, a data librarian, a psychologist, a manager, and a technical writer. It's helpful if he knows a little about the subject of the web site he's working on too. This module looks at application planning taking these disciplines into mind, with a view to persuading the trainee to write easy-to-use, robust, pretty, easy-to-upgrade applications within budget and on time.

This topic is presented on public courses PHP Programming, Deploying LAMP - Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP, Linux Web Server, Extra Day

Examples from our training material

4lm_business.inc	business logic for 4 layer demo
4lm_template.htp	HTML template for 4 layer model
4lm_top.php	Full PHP application / 4 layer model - start here
4lm_webhelpers.inc	Web Helpers for 4 layer model demo
demo.htp	Template for sc5.php4 and sc6 "best practise" examples
details.xsl	Style sheet to format one particular piece of information from an XML file
grgen.php	Generate a graphic to show a text string
gruse.php	Capthca Driver
hph.php	Using an array to set a generalised form
hph2.php	Sticky form, Regex Validation, save to db when AOK
images.xml	XML data used by demonstration program
imnames.xsl	Style sheet used to get a list of all images held in XML file
niceform.php4	Form, validation, sticky fields, email results
sc5.php	Main demo script (for older versions of PHP)
sc5.php4	Main demo script - uses sessions, functions, SQL, XML and XSLT
sc6.php	Main demo script; uses sessions, functions, SQL, XML and XSLT
slidetell.php	Look up records (paginated) in a MySQL table.
sqldemo.inc	SQL functions for sc5 and sc6 demos
stdsess.inc	standard functions for sc5 and sc6 demos
xsltdemo.inc	xslt functions for sc5 and sc5 demos

Specialist books

Opentalk forum discussions related to this topic

Arrays and URLs

Pictures

Web Application design - best practise
Steps in a PHP based web application
Designing your web / CGI / Perl application

Background information

Some modules are available for download as a sample of our material or under an Open Training Notes License for free download from http://www.training-notes.co.uk.

Topics covered in this module

Thinking through your design.
Tools to help you design.
Designing a smaller application example.
A note on using PHP in a Web environment.
Writing maintainable code.
Code documentation.
Use of functions and include files.
Version issues.
Coding Standards.
And all the languages in one file?.
Writing code for different databases.
Miscellany.
Error handling and software testing.
Bad characters.
Expect the unexpected and check everything.
Error numbering and handling.
Data validation, sessions, XML/XSLT, SQL.

Course links

The following web pages are used as references / examples in this module

[Link] PEAR :: Manual: Coding Standards
(at http://pear.php.net/manual/en/standards.php)

[Link] XSLT namespace
(at http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform)

[Link] No Title
(at http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Format)

We check these links from time to time with a spider written in PHP. Latest full check was on Saturday, 12th June 2004. Titles are extracted from the web pages listed.

Complete learning

If you are looking for a complete course and not just a information on a single subject, visit our Listing and schedule page.

Well House Consultants specialise in training courses in Python, Perl, PHP, and MySQL. We run Private Courses throughout the UK (and beyond for longer courses), and Public Courses at our training centre in Melksham, Wiltshire, England. It's surprisingly cost effective to come on our public courses - even if you live in a different country or continent to us.

We have a technical library of over 600 books on the subjects on which we teach. These books are available for reference at our training centre. Also available is the Opentalk Forum for discussion of technical questions.