Reviews for PHP Pocket Reference

1. It'll do

   Rated 2 out of 5 stars, April 12th, 2010

   Pretty poor reference as stated by others, and out of date.
   But I wanted a small reference book so was willing to accept its flaws.

2. Worst techbook I bought

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, September 12th, 2008

   The first 34 pages are somewhat useful, where some basics of php are explained briefly.
   
   After that, there is an alphabetical list of functions with 1 line of explanation for each.
   
   Totally useless.

3. Utterly useless for most people

   Rated 1 out of 5 stars, April 12th, 2008

   I bought this book already knowing PHP but needing a quick reference to refer to for all the built-in functions (there's no way I can memorize them all!) so I could quickly look up the correct function to use. For that purpose this book is totally useless. Let us count the ways:
   
   1. the function reference is not categorized (array functions, database functions etc) in any way, it's just a LOOONG list of all the functions in alphabetical order so you need to know the name of the function you're looking for before you even start looking.
   
   2. No index, which could have made (1) slightly less of a problem.
   
   3. Each function in the reference begins with the return type (string, int etc). Handy, but as these return types are all different lengths, and there's no padding to make the function names after them line up, you can't just scan down the page at the function names, you have to first find where the function name starts on the line. Slow slow slow. Would a bit of spacing really have hurt that much?
   
   I get the feeling this book was thrown together in a very short time, with very little care and no thought put into its usability as a reference of any kind.
   
   Stick to the online documentation if you're after the kind of quick reference this book should have been.

4. Could also be used to level your table !

   Rated 2 out of 5 stars, February 12th, 2006

   The copy I bought is the 2nd Edition (covering PHP4) in paperback. I'm learning PHP and thought it would be useful, but the Function Reference section starts at page 34 through to 132, and as a previous reviewer has said, "There is no index". The list of functions are not sorted alphabetically either ! The good side is that the book wasn't expensive and I might find something useful in it eventually.

5. A great reference for the beginner

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, February 12th, 2004

   This book pitches you headlong into coding PHP. By the time you've finished the first two chapters, you'll be able to implement any of the thousands of function references that make up the rest of the title. A great sidearm for web developers, whatever your experience level, and another worthwhile product from O'Reilly Press. Thoroughly recommended.