PHP Toolbox explains how to use popular PEAR modules and PHP add-ons to simplify your XML processing, database access, templating, and other common tasks. It also explains how to use a PHP code cache or optimizer, which speeds up your code without requiring any rewriting or code changes.
David Sklar
Community Debugging Open Source PHP Web Services XML programming programming language web design
From the reviews:
"This book intends to simplify programming tasks through the use … . The intended audience is intermediate-to-advanced, although I believe it is also of great use to the uninitiated. The Introduction provides a solid introduction to the use of PEAR … . The section on databases is required reading for anyone wishing to … . The Smarty chapter is an excellent introduction into templating … . Especially enjoyable is the chapter on PEAR’s Mail_mime … . I particularly enjoyed the level of detail given … ." (Mitchell Pirtle, International PHP Magazine, Issue no. 4, 2004)