Introduction to PHP and MySQL

Learn how to create dynamic web pages and interactive websites using the PHP programming language and MySQL database server. This course provides clear, step-by-step instructions and useful templates for creating a complete website capable of dynamically displaying data from a MySQL database.

6 Weeks Access / 24 Course Hrs

Details
Syllabus
Requirements
Instructor
Reviews

Enrollment Options

Details

Learn how to create an interactive website, allowing visitors to post and retrieve information provided by you or your site's visitors. In this online course, you'll see how to create dynamic web pages using the PHP programming language and the MySQL database server.

During the course, you'll walk through the development of a complete content management system web application. You'll receive clear, step-by-step, instructions demonstrating how to create a complete website capable of dynamically displaying data from a MySQL database.

You'll discover how you can allow your site's visitors to add new information to an online database, search through posted data, and create meaningful printed reports. By the end of this course, you'll have plenty of useful code templates that will help you create your very own dynamic, web-based, content management system.

Enrollment Options:

Instructor-Led

6 Weeks Access Course Code: iph

Start Dates*Apr 12 | May 17 | Jun 14 | Jul 12

*Choose start date in cart

$115.00 USD

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Syllabus

Lesson 1 - What Is PHP?

These days, people expect the information on professional websites to change continually and to remain up to date—even up to the minute. In this lesson, you'll start learning how to produce dynamic web pages that can do just that. You'll begin by exploring the web application that you'll be building throughout the course—one that will result in a complete content management system that you can adapt for any future websites you create. You'll see how the PHP programming language presents dynamic data, and how the MySQL database server stores it. You'll also dive into the world of WAMP servers, the engine behind dynamic websites. Finally, you'll take a big (but easy) step forward by downloading and installing a WAMP server on your own computer.

Lesson 2 - Basic PHP Programming

Discover how to incorporate PHP programming into your web pages to dynamically produce content on your web pages. You'll see how to store data in variables, and use mathematical operators on data to write programs that can manipulate and display content on your web pages.

Lesson 3 - More PHP Programming Features

A key aspect of dynamic web applications is the ability to process data and make decisions based on the data. You'll examine some PHP statements that allow you to alter the content in your web pages based on data values in your PHP programs. You'll also learn some techniques for simplifying the programming process by using loops to handle multiple data elements, as well as how to include common code files in all your web pages.

Lesson 4 - Creating a MySQL Database

In this lesson you'll use the popular phpMyAdmin web-based tool to create database objects. You'll first examine how data is organized in a database, then you'll create the actual database and tables necessary for the course project data.

Lesson 5 - Creating a Dynamic Home Page

The core of the Recipe Center application is the web page template. In this lesson you'll walk through the HTML and CSS code required to display the dynamic content that your PHP code will generate.

Lesson 6 - Displaying Database Content Dynamically

In this lesson you'll dig into the nuts and bolts of dynamic web programming. You'll use PHP code to retrieve data from MySQL tables and display it on the Recipe Center web page. Now you can control what appears on the web page simply by changing data in the database!

Lesson 7 - Allowing Visitors to Enter Data

Allowing visitors to post information dynamically is a great feature to add to your website. In this lesson you'll see how to create HTML forms for entering data, then work on how to retrieve the data and insert it into the MySQL table using PHP code. This will make your website even more attractive to visitors!

Lesson 8 - Implementing a Simple Search Engine

This lesson walks through the basics of implementing a simple search engine in your dynamic web application. Providing the ability for visitors to quickly search and retrieve data stored in the database is a great feature to add to your site, and you'll see how to do that with just a few extra lines of PHP code and some SQL magic!

Lesson 9 - Producing Attractive Printer-Friendly Pages

Despite the efforts of web programming, the world hasn't quite gone paperless yet. Because of that, you'll need to provide a printer-friendly version of your web application so visitors can print information. In this lesson, you'll see two different ways to provide a printer-friendly way of displaying the dynamic content from the Recipe Center.

Lesson 10 - Controlling User Access

Restricting access to data on a website is a vital feature for many web administrators. This lesson shows how to use PHP to control access either to an entire website, or to just specific features on the website. This lets you control who can submit data to your site, helping to block the comment spam that often appears on blog sites.

Lesson 11 - Backing up and Restoring MySQL Data Files

Being able to restore data in a database is a crucial function in any dynamic website. This lesson demonstrates different methods of backing up and restoring data in the MySQL environment. You'll learn not only how recover data into an existing database, but also how to migrate data from one MySQL server to another.

Lesson 12 - Implementing Pagination

All websites that provide access to lots of data implement some way to page through the data. In this lesson, you'll implement a pagination algorithm that allows your site visitors to page through all of the data records in small chunks. This is one of those features you can add to help make your website look more professional.

Requirements

Prerequisites:

There are no prerequisites to take this course. Prior HTML coding experience is helpful, but not required.

Requirements:

Hardware Requirements:

This course can be taken on either a PC or Mac.
Mac users will not be able to use the WAMP5 software, and must provide their own PHP and MySQL development environment.

Software Requirements:

PC: Windows 8 or later.
Mac: macOS 10.6 or later.
Browser: The latest version of Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox are preferred. Microsoft Edge and Safari are also compatible.
During the first lesson in the course, you will be walked through the process of installing WAMP5 software, which provides a full PHP and MySQL development environment. You can download WAMP5 for free here.
Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Software must be installed and fully operational before the course begins.

Other:

Email capabilities and access to a personal email account.

Instructional Material Requirements:

The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.

Instructor

Richard Blum

Richard Blum has been an IT industry professional for over 20 years, working mainly as a network and systems administrator. During this time, he has worked with Microsoft, Novell, Unix, and Linux servers, and has created websites using a variety of different programming languages. Blum is the author of several programming and systems administration books, including Professional Assembly Language, C# Network Programming, PostgreSQL 8 for Windows, Sendmail for Linux, Postfix, and Network Performance Open Source Toolkit.

Instructor Interaction: The instructor looks forward to interacting with learners in the online moderated discussion area to share their expertise and answer any questions you may have on the course content.

Reviews

Fantastic course, Rich -- many thanks! Great teaching approach for those of us without a coding background, very non-threatening & encouraging.

I can't say enough good things about this course and the instructor. As a 42+ year veteran of the 'computer wars' I've had a lot of training - this was quite possibly the best ever. My web site is up and running and I already have plans to leverage this new knowledge both at work and for a little project I've had in mind for a business I run out of my home. Heartiest congratulations to everyone for such a great offering!

I have taken other ed2go courses, and this one is one of the best. The material was well-prepared, the assignments were relevant and did good job of strengthening the information taught in the lessons. Richard is very interactive in the discussion area, responds quickly and completely to questions, and is willing to research and answer questions outside of direct scope of the lesson. Very good teaching style, and an excellent instructor. I am looking forward to the Intermediate course.

I've taken several online courses and I would rate this course one of the best. The instructor was very knowledgeable and responsive. Thanks.

I was impressed right away with how our instructor wrote personal replies to our introductions in the discussion area. The written materials were excellent. The course was a good all-around start to setting up an easily-updated web site. I appreciated getting information that is not always included in a course like this -- in particular versioning information and database backups. I would definitely take another class from Rich and from Ed2Go. I've already recommended another class to a friend. Thanks.

Richard is an excellent, patient instructor. He took time in the discussion area to completely answer questions no matter how many times information had to be repeated. I would definitely consider taking any course that he teaches. I will be watching for a PHP Level 2 course and hope it won't take too long for it to be available!

The instructor was helpful and courteous, going out of his way to answer questions about the material that may not have been relevant to the class itself. I would definitely recommend others take this instructor's courses.

This is one of the best courses I have taken from ed2go. The course plan and the material covered helped me gain a good understanding of the subject. The assignments were very helpful. The teacher was good at communicating and answering questions.

When I enrolled in this course, I'd just received a refund from another school for a PHP course that fell sharply below my expectations in examples and hands-on application. I could hardly believe this course offered so much, but I'm now convinced I got everything the course said I would and more. This course was excellent in text, instruction, and hands-on applications!