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From the series Editor:
As
the series editor for this book I was involved in
Gogala’s book, from initial inception to finished product,
and I’m
impressed. Oracle offers a wealth of different tools to
create dynamic
web pages (Apex (HTML-DB), Jdeveloper, Ruby on Rail on Oracle, etc.)
and PHP is an excellent choice because it is powerful, mature and has
well-tested Oracle interfaces.
It’s
very difficult to take a
complex topic such as Oracle with PHP and condense it into an
understandable and concise framework, but Gogala has met this challenge.
PHP
is, by its very nature, a
flexible and robust language, and I was happy to see that Gogala
resisted the temptation to go into all of the advanced PHP features.
This
is not an advanced PHP
Oracle book. Rather, it is a get-started guide with lots of
simple,
easy to understand examples, and working Oracle PHP code snippets in
the code download to allow beginners to get started fast.
Mladen spent
hundreds of hours refining his text and working with Steve Karam, his
technical editor, and I hope that you will agree that this is a great
way to get started with Oracle databases on the web.
Before
my move absorbed my time, I promised to review the first Oracle PHP
book published this year, "Easy Oracle PHP: Create
Dynamic Web Pages with Oracle Data"
by Mladen Gogala. Now I'm once again at a permanent address I
was able
to order a copy of the book. There is always a delightful
pleasure in
having a parcel delivered to my office.
Mladen "is a long term DBA" and has been actively helping on various
Oracle-related mailing lists. I had the pleasure of meeting him at the
New York PHP conference where he made a special trip into NY to meet
me.
The writing style of Easy Oracle PHP is very clear. The book
is
relatively short at 264 pages but it focuses directly on PHP-Oracle
interaction and does not need to be longer (though everyone will always
wish for more).
The chapters are:
-
Introduction to PHP
-
PHP Object Model
-
OCI8 Model
-
Using PEAR
-
Using ADOdb
-
Open Source Software
-
DBA Little Helper
-
Installing PHP5, Apache and PEAR
The introduction to PHP is concise and readable. It nicely
summarizes
important aspects of the PHP language without spending time on detail
that is anyway best read from a dedicated PHP language book or the
online PHP manual. The discussion of OO is necessarily brief
but it is
to the point.
The OCI8, PEAR, and ADOdb chapters form the core third of the book.
Connecting, fetching, committing, binding BLOBS, PL/SQL and handling
errors are all covered with clear examples. Comparisons
between
interfaces are made. Gotchas and the occasional bug are
mentioned so
you know exactly where you stand. Code examples are
informative.
Open Source Software is a short chapter that speaks about the Oracle
Editor. This is an example program that provides a web
interface to an
Oracle DB. It was available from OTN's PHP Developer Center
and is
still online at various places.
The next chapter, DBA Little Helper, is much longer. It
covers the
author's tool for managing Oracle databases. The tool itself
is
available from the
author's website
where new versions are posted as features are added. To
appreciate
this chapter some familiarity with Oracle terminology is useful but the
source code is a good example of a large application.
The final chapter discusses installation. This is perhaps the
chapter
which will date quickest as the PHP community improves (or changes)
regularly. Again gotchas are clearly explained so it is a
valuable
reference for everyone.
The clear writing, use of solid examples, and deep understanding of the
Oracle database by the author make this a good book. The
focus of the
book on the interaction of the database with PHP gives the reader the
ability to focus on the core of applications. This book will have most
benefit for Oracle users who are new to PHP but will also give insight
for PHP users with less Oracle familiarity.
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