Expert PHP and MySQL targets developers who work on mission-critical and high-traffic applications on a daily basis. There are plenty of books that teach people the basics of PHP and MySQL. This book takes a different approach and focuses on best practices and expert techniques that can be applied directly to today's most demanding MySQL-driven PHP applications.

The book begins with an overview of PHP, MySQL, and regular expressions. These chapters will not only be a foundation for the rest of the book but also provide tips and tricks that the readers can immediately apply to their projects. It then continues onto progressively more advanced topics, including:

• MySQL storage engines and their real-world uses
• Practical data reporting techniques for separating business logic from presentation
• Improved performance and flexibility through caching, multi-tasking, PHP extensions, and MySQL User Defined Functions
• Security, optimization, and debugging
• Building high-performance full-text search applications

The book uses proven, author-tested design patterns and tools that save developers valuable time but are rarely covered in other PHP or MySQL books. The authors also show how to solve problems when PHP and MySQL alone are not enough and other techniques or third-party tools are necessary. Such is often the case with dynamic applications that handle immense amounts of data. (For example, the authors show how to use the C language for writing PHP extensions and MySQL User Defined Functions.)