Integrating PayPal into your site may seem intimidating to those who have never put together a serious project before. It might seem like everything changes when you start dealing with money. You always hear about someone else who has been scammed or in some kind of nightmare involving some sort of online transaction. When you realize how easy PayPal makes it to utilize their services it really puts any anxiety you have to rest.
After learning the basics of PHP's basic file system functions, the first thing you'll want to do is put it to use. One of the easiest and flashiest things you can create is a page counting script. I'll show you how to create a page hit script that is easy to create and even easier to implement.
Knowing the basics of cookies and sessions is essential to any successful PHP programmer. It is useful to store pieces information on the users computer for later use. Things like when they laste visited, language of choice, age, etc. Cookies and Sessions are the perfect solution to our needs.
| Browser needs Cookies Enabled? | Can User Edit Information? |
Information Lasts Between Browser Sessions? (Leaving site and coming back) |
Information Location | |
| Cookies |
Yes | Yes, easily |
Yes | User's Browser |
| Sessions |
No |
No* | No | Server, except for session ID |
The first thing I wanted to know after learning the basics of PHP was how to store my data on a more permanent basis. PHP is all well and good but without the ability to store data between browser sessions it has limited functionality. After learning how to store and retrieve data, your PHP scripts really come to life.
One of the biggest mistakes of today's fledgling MySQL programmers is their field type definitions, also known as data type or column type. Many are too quick to set up their tables, flying through the different options without giving it much thought. The time you spend setting up your tables will save you from many headaches later on down the road.