CodeIgniter for Rapid PHP Application Development

Improve your PHP coding productivity with the free compact open-source MVC CodeIgniter framework!

Clear, structured tutorial on working with CodeIgniter Careful explanation of the basic concepts of CodeIgniter and its MVC architecture Using CodeIgniter with databases, HTML forms, files, images, sessions, and email Building a dynamic website quickly and easily using CodeIgniter's prepared code

In Detail

CodeIgniter (CI) is a powerful open-source PHP framework with a very small footprint, built for PHP coders who need a simple and elegant toolkit to create full-featured web applications. CodeIgniter is an MVC framework, similar in some ways to the Rails framework for Ruby, and is designed to enable, not overwhelm.

This book explains how to work with CodeIgniter in a clear logical way. It is not a detailed guide to the syntax of CodeIgniter, but makes an ideal complement to the existing online CodeIgniter user guide, helping you grasp the bigger picture and bringing together many ideas to get your application development started as smoothly as possible.

What you will learn from this book?

Setting up the CI package on your web server Understanding the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern for organizing a dynamic website Understanding the structure of a CI site Designing better views and controllers Object-oriented aspects of CI Integrating databases such as MySQL and simplifying your database access Making your site more robust and professional by using CI's built-in classes Creating and validating HTML forms with CI form helpers Handling files, images, and sessions with CI Sending email from CI Using CI for testing your code with error handling, unit testing, benchmarking, and profiling Getting an XML-RPC server and client working Generating Create, Update, Delete, and Read (C.R.U.D) entries on each database table

Approach

This book steps you through the main features of CodeIgniter in a systematic way, explaining them clearly with illustrative code examples.

Who this book is written for?

This book is for developers who are new to CodeIgniter. Basic skills in PHP and MySQL are required, but only rudimentary object-oriented knowledge is required.

If you're looking for a better way to develop PHP applications, or want to find out more about the CodeIgniter framework as a viable option for one of your own projects, this book will help you.

User review
Exactly what I expected
This was what I was expecting. Great price and great shipping time. The book is an easy read is you already know PHP.

User review
Good bridge between knowing PHP and the Documentation
I felt this was a good bridge between knowing PHP and getting started in CodeIgnitor, it focuses on the idea of a framework.

Chapters 1 through 11 are good getting me from knowing PHP to using CodeIgnitor relatively painless. It bridges gap in knowledge needed to use the CodeIgnitor manuals provided in the distribution, which requires you understand some things before they make sense.
This is a problem I found lacking in most of the open source CMS and Framework systems, so it's nothing against CodeIgnitor.

I recommend this book to anyone who knows how to use PHP already, and may have built a website or two, and is looking to build a website in a structured environment, that is going to avoid many of the pitfalls associated with building your own website, this book helps avoid some of the pitfalls in getting started in CI that I had fallen into before reading the book.

However in this book , I feel a programmer should probably stop reading after chapter 11 .

Chapter 12 goes into detail of the internal workingings, which is nice, but is just nuts and bolts without good interpretation of when to use the parts, I would advise not reading this, after developing an application after reading the book I went back and read this, and still did not find any use in it.

Chapter 13, the building the sample application the author disregards earlier coding guidelines and puts HTML into a model, breaking the principle of MVC, I think reading this chapter and trying to use the source code to actually hold me back in building my first applicaiton, and I had to 'unlearn' some things that were being done in there.

Chapter 14 is similarly confusing, building an application without following earlier guidelines.

Chapter 15 is just wild speculation on what extensions might be out there, without any guidance on how to use them. I am still up against a gap in knowledge of how to use 3rd party extension.


User review
Looking forward to an updated version
Like the other reviews have indicated, CodeIgniter is a terrific asset to application development. I am fairly new to both CI and PHP, but after learning as much as I can from the internet, I felt it was time to look to some books.

This book is very easy to read and does not feel like a `tech` manual at all. Don't let that fool you though, it is very informative, just not at the cost of being boring. It exposed some of the more interesting aspects of CodeIgniter, such as the test suite, FTP class, as well as many other nuances of the framework.

Since the writing of this book, CodeIgniter has grown to version 1.7.2, which is far beyond the 1.5 that the book refers to. I know that there have been many updates to CI and thus rendered some of the techniques shown to be outdated. The form validation section is one that stands out to me as being greatly improved in version 1.7+.

Considering that this book is a bit dated, it is still a great asset to anyone desiring to learn the basics as well as some logic behind CodeIgniter.

User review
Deeper Overview
CodeIgniter is the fastest PHP framework out there, and it works. There are very few bugs in the code. The other thing that CodeIgniter has that other frameworks don't is a good forum and excellent documentation. It has an outstanding Users Guide you can download which lists every function with a code example.

And now, there are two books out on CodeIgniter. I purchased both books, read this one from cover to cover, and am 1/3 of the way through the `Professional CodeIgniter` book, which is much slower going. I figure folks might want to know the difference before they buy.

`CodeIgniter for Rapid PHP,,.` is a detailed overview of CodeIgniter. First, I have to disagree with the previous reviewer. This book does not walk you through a complete application. There is part of an application in Chap 13 & 14, but that's it. This is an overview book. It is more verbose than the User's Guide, and arranges the topics in a different, perhaps, more understandable format. This is a reading book. You're not meant to sit at your computer, and input the code with this book. Instead the code is presented in a `how to do this` type of format, and now, let's move on to the next topic. There is not a consistent application throughout the book that glues all the chapters together. This could be a reference for CodeIgniter, except I wish it had a better Index. For example, there is no Model topic under M in the Index which lists only `Menu` under `M.` In contrast, `Professional CodeIgniter` lists 24 subtopics under `Model` in its Index.

Having gone through the negatives, I still rate this book 4 stars, because it is very readable, and there is value to be gained from the read. It's an excellent detailed overview. There are pearls and tidbits that you pick up in the book that make it worthwhile. You get a good overall feel of CodeIgniter from the book. It's also nice to read a computer book without necessarily running to the computer every two pages. You don't need your computer to benefit from this book, unlike the `Professional CodeIgniter` book which you do need a computer, and is not as easily read which I'll review on its page.

User review
Hesitant at first
When I first discovered CodeIgniter, I was overcome with glee after following the video tutorials. It all worked. There was no need to rely on any command-line interaction to `automagically` build my application for me. There was no dependence on PEAR or any other outside resources. There was just CodeIgniter. And it worked.

As soon as I got a grasp on what it was doing and why, I dove into the excellent User Guide and began to feel all warm and fuzzy inside. This felt like home. The user guide is written in such a non-intimidating manner that it invites even the most timid of PHP developers. To this day, I still refer to the user guide when I forget specific syntax or function names and it's a guick in-and-out routine. Nothing at all complex about it.

Not too long ago I came across a book by Packt Publishing called 'CodeIgniter for Rapid PHP Application Development'. At first, I thought to myself, `Why?`. The combination of the user guide, the forum and CodeIgniter's well structured code is surely enough for anybody to learn, right? What could this book have that any potential developer could not obtain through these natural resources?

Throughout the fifteen chapters in the book, the author walks you through building a functional application from start to finish (well, at least as finished as any web application truly is). At first I thought the choice of the application to build was rather odd, but as I continued reading the book, I realized it was a good example because of the wide array of helpers, libraries and other standard CodeIgniter components and logic the application uses. Specifically, the example application provides a way to monitor several different aspects of remote websites by performing tests and generating reports. The author does a great job of walking the reader through the process step by step while explaining why and how the various CodeIgniter components are being used.

However, I did find the odd spelling error here and there and I don't necessarily agree with outputting HTML from a model, but overall this book is a great addition to the natural resources that the user guide and forum provide. This book will be of no help to the (albeit few) people that immediately jump into the forums asking `how do I,,.` without taking a little time to read through the user guide and searching pre-existent forum threads to find a solution for their problem, but for those who truly want to learn more about the framework and want to have a good book on hand, then this book certainly does the trick.