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"PHP + MySQL Book"

I've decided that it might be an idea to buy a book on this stuff, so I can sit down and start from the very basics on both so that I can actually do things correctly without accidentally wiping everything off of the face of the Earth...

What ones are good? Just ~imagine~ that I'm a complete idiot and no (I actually wrote 'no' for some reason...) nothing about this stuff...

Plus if someone recommends me a really good book, I might buy it through their Amazon referral thingy to say 'thanks'...

That is unless I can find it cheaper elsewhere...

For £15 you won't get a decent book. For my a-level project, I have had to learn PHP and MySQL really quickly with the help of the bible mentioned erlier. its great. get it. PHP and MySQL are not difficult to learn, took me like 2 weeks to get my site done.

phi11ip wrote:
[URL]http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321186486/qid=1103815773/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_3_1/202-2652214-3627066[/URL]

Not a bad little book for £8, though I haven't read through the whole thing yet. [URL]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321186486/qid%3D1103815773/sr%3D1-1/ref%3Dsr%5F1%5F3%5F1/102-9858601-8278531[/URL] and amazon.com have a 'look in me' feature (click on the image), and you can sample chapter 13.

The style of this book is pretty good, though you may find it a bit to broken up compared to other books.

I have a pocket-sized O'Reilly HTML reference book that's been really useful over the years. Has some kind of animal on the front.

A good place to start is perhaps oreilly.com. They aren't necessarily the greatest books, but they do have sample chapters of nearly all their books available for viewing. At least you'll get a fair idea of what they are like. And if you want to take the kind of approach that monkey_man suggested I can at least recommend their cookbook series, I started out on the Perl Cookbook, taught me everything I needed to know.
Also http://www.sitepoint.com/books/ you can get the first 4 chapters of their php/mysql book to look at.

Just ask Garin. That's what I do.

There's loads of places on the net that offer free tutorials but nothing really 'flows' as I want it to.

I'd rather just spend £15 or whatever on a book that starts from the basics and then progresses step-by-step.

If I could find something like that one the net then it would be great, but I want something that's just well annotated and written to make life easier for me.

I had to lear PHP and mySQL rather quickly for a uni project, found trying to read tutorials on the web hard too as I'd get sidetracked.
Decided to order this book [URL]http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764557467/qid=1103816535/sr=2-3/ref=sr_2_3_3/026-9996198-3488455[/URL]
and got a PHP for dummies book too in a deal but the PHP for dummies book hasn't been used much.

Found that book a great start though.

I don't know if a book is necessary. I learnt from scratch by 'reverse-engineering' samples, and I already had a background in C++, JS and, BASIC, so I suppose that helped a bit. All I did was sit down and say "Right, I need to do this...this is how someone else has done it...this is how the PHP bible says to do it...", then break it down into it's core functions, convert it to my own way of working, and build it back up again. PHP.net is perfect for this way of working. I think what would be handy though is if we made up a thread of 'building blocks' for different languages, e.g. starting your first HTML page: content - that sort of thing.

OK, PHP + MySQL for Dummies it is then!

[URL]http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0764555898/qid=1103815773/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_3_2/202-2652214-3627066[/URL]

or this...

[URL]http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321186486/qid=1103815773/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_3_1/202-2652214-3627066[/URL]

There's just loads of books around. All I'm looking for is maybe a book that someone has got and is willing to receommmdnenenned. Not sure how good any of these books on here are...

Find it in a bookshop, then go online and buy it cheaper online ;)