PHP and MySQL Web Development 4th Ed-tqw-_darksiderg

Introduction
7
installing it for mass use for quite some time. However, some of the key features planned
in PHP 6 have been back-ported to PHP 5.3, which is a minor version release and closer
to passing acceptance testing and thus installation by hosting providers (of course, if
you are your own server’s administrator, you can install any version you like).
Some of the new features in PHP 5.3 are listed below; additional information also
appears throughout this book as appropriate:
n The addition of namespaces; for more information see http://www.php.net/
language.namespaces
n The addition of the intl extension for application internationalization; for more
information see http://www.php.net/manual/en/intro.intl.php
n The addition of the phar extension for creating self-contained PHP application
archives; for more information see http://www.php.net/book.phar
n The addition of the fileinfo extension for enhanced ability to work with files;
for more information see http://www.php.net/manual/en/book.fileinfo.php
n The addition of the sqlite3 extension for working with the SQLite Embeddable
SQL Database Engine; for more information see http://www.php.net/manual/en/
class.sqlite3.php
n The inclusion of support for the MySQLnd driver, a replacement for libmysql; for
more information see http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/PHP_MYSQLND
While the list above contains some of the highly-touted features of PHP 5.3, the release
also includes a significant number of bug fixes and maintenance performed on existing
functionality, such as:
n Removing support for any version of Windows older than Windows 2000 (such as
Windows 98 and NT4)
n Ensuring the PCRE, Reflection, and SPL extensions are always enabled
n Adding a few date and time functions for ease of date calculation and manipulation
n Improving the crypt(), hash(), and md5() functionality, as well as improving the
OpenSSL extension
n Improving php.ini administration and handling, including better error reporting
n Continuing to fine-tune the Zend engine for better PHP runtime speed and
memory usage
Some of MySQLs Strengths
MySQLs main competitors are PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and Oracle.
MySQL has many strengths, including the following:
n
n
High performance
Low cost