Introduction to PHP: Characteristics of PHP - PHP Configuration - Basic PHP Constructs – Variables and Data types – Expressions, Operators, and Control Structures.

Functions: Function Definition and Invocation - Nested Functions - Returning Values from a Function - Recursive Functions - Variable Functions - Building Function Libraries. Arrays: Creating Arrays - Multidimensional Arrays - Referencing Multidimensional Arrays - Locating Array Elements - Adding and Removing Elements - Traversing Arrays - Array Size - Sorting Arrays

File I/O and the File System: Opening and Closing I/O - Writing to a File - Reading from a File - Reading a File into an Array - Redirecting a File Directly to Output Opening a Process File Pointer with popen( ) - Opening a Socket Connection - External Program Execution - Working with the File System - Displaying and Modifying File Characteristics - Copying and Renaming Files - Deleting Files.

Strings and Regular Expressions: Regular Expressions - PHP’s Regexp Functions (POSIX Extended) - Regular Expression Syntax (Perl Style) - PHP’sRegexp Functions (Perl Compatible) - Other String-Specific Functions. Forms: An Introduction to Forms. Forms and PHP - Error Checking - Dynamic Forms Construction.

MySQL: Introduction to MySQL: Naming Database Elements - Choosing Your Column Types - Choosing Other Column Properties - Accessing MySQL. Using PHP with MySQL: Modifying the Template - Connecting to MySQL - Executing Simple Queries - Retrieving Query Results - Ensuring Secure SQL - Counting Returned Records - Updating Records with PHP