AJAX and PHP: Building Responsive Web Applications

Bogdan Brinzarea, Cristian Darie, Filip Chereches-Tosa

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2006
• eBook ISBN: 9781904811237
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Information Technology
• Index: Computer Science

This book is for web developers willing to build better web applications. A basic knowledge of PHP, XML, JavaScript and MySQL, or a strong will to learn-as-you-type, is assumed.

AJAX and PHP

Building Responsive Web Applications

Cristian Darie

Bogdan Brinzarea

Filip Cherecheş-Toşa

Mihai Bucica

---

Table of Contents

AJAX and PHP

Credits

About the Authors

About the Reviewers

Preface

What This Book Covers

What You Need for This Book

Conventions

Reader Feedback

Customer Support

Downloading the Example Code for the Book

Errata

Questions

1. AJAX and the Future of Web Applications

Delivering Functionality via the Web

Advantages of Web Applications

Building Websites Since 1990

HTTP and HTML

PHP and Other Server-Side Technologies

JavaScript and Other Client-Side Technologies

What’s Been Missing?

Understanding AJAX

Building a Simple Application with AJAX and PHP

Time for Action—Quickstart AJAX

What Just Happened?

Summary

2. Client-Side Techniques with Smarter JavaScript

JavaScript and the Document Object Model

Time for Action—Playing with JavaScript and the DOM

What Just Happened?

JavaScript Events and the DOM

Time for Action—Using JavaScript Events and the DOM

What Just Happened?

Even More DOM

Time for Action—Even More DOM

What Just Happened?

JavaScript, DOM, and CSS

Time for Action—Working with CSS and JavaScript

What Just Happened?

Using the XMLHttpRequest Object

Creating the XMLHttpRequest Object

Creating Better Objects for Internet Explorer

Initiating Server Requests Using XMLHttpRequest

Handling Server Response

Time for Action—Making Asynchronous Calls with XMLHttpRequest

What Just Happened?

Working with XML Structures

Time for Action—Making Asynchronous Calls with XMLHttpRequest and XML

What Just Happened?

Handling More Errors and Throwing Exceptions

Creating XML Structures

Summary

3. Server-Side Techniqueswith PHP and MySQL

PHP and DOM

Time for Action—Doing AJAX with PHP

What Just Happened?

Passing Parameters and Handling PHP Errors

Time for Action—Passing PHP Parameters and Error Handling

What Just Happened?

Connecting to Remote Servers and JavaScript Security

Time for Action—Connecting to Remote Servers

What Just Happened?

Using a Proxy Server Script

Time for Action—Using a Proxy Server Script to Access Remote Servers

What Just Happened?

A Framework for Making Repetitive Asynchronous Requests

Time for Action—Implementing Repetitive Tasks

What Just Happened?

Working with MySQL

Creating Database Tables

Manipulating Data

Connecting to Your Database and Executing Queries

Time for Action—Working with PHP and MySQL

What Just Happened?

Wrapping Things Up and Laying Out the Structure

Time for Action—Building the Friendly Application

What Just Happened?

Summary

4. AJAX Form Validation

Implementing AJAX Form Validation

Thread-Safe AJAX

Time for Action—AJAX Form Validation

What Just Happened?

Summary

5. AJAX Chat

Introducing AJAX Chat

AJAX Chat Solutions

Implementing AJAX Chat

Time for Action—Ajax Chat

What just happened?

Summary

6. AJAX Suggest and Autocomplete

Introducing AJAX Suggest and Autocomplete

Google Suggest

Implementing AJAX Suggest and Autocomplete

Time for Action—;AJAX Suggest and Autocomplete

What Just Happened?

Summary

7. AJAX Real-Time Charting with SVG

Implementing a Real-Time Chart with AJAX and SVG

Time for Action—Building the Real-Time SVG Chart

What Just Happened?

Summary

8. AJAX Grid

Implementing the AJAX Grid Using Client-Side XSLT

Time for Action—AJAX Grid

What Just Happened?

Summary

9. AJAX RSS Reader

Working with RSS

The RSS Document Structure

Google Reader

Implementing the AJAX RSS Reader

Time for Action—Building the RSS Reader Application

What Just Happened?

Summary

10. AJAX Drag and Drop

Using Drag and Drop on the Web

Shopping Carts

Sortable Lists

Building the AJAX Drag-and-Drop Sortable List Application

Time for Action—Task Management Application with AJAX

What Just Happened?

Summary

A. Preparing Your Working Environment

Preparing Your Windows Playground

Installing Apache

Installing MySQL

Installing PHP

Preparing Your *nix Playground

Installing Apache

Installing MySQL

Installing PHP

Installing phpMyAdmin

Preparing the AJAX Database

Index

AJAX and PHP

Building Responsive Web Applications

Copyright © 2006 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors, Packt Publishing, nor its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: March 2006

Production Reference: 1210206

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

32 Lincoln Road

Olton

Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK.

ISBN 1-904811-82-5

www.packtpub.com

Cover Design by www.visionwt.com

Credits

Authors

Cristian Darie

Brinzarea Bogdan

Filip Cherecheş-Toşa

Mihai Bucica

Reviewers

Emilian Balanescu

Paula Badascu

Technical Editor

Jimmy Karumalil

Editorial Manager

Dipali Chittar

Development Editor

Cristian Darie

Indexer

Ashutosh Pande

Proofreader

Chris Smith

Production Coordinator

Manjiri Nadkarni

Cover Designer

Helen Wood

About the Authors

Cristian Darie is a software engineer with experience in a wide range of modern technologies, and the author of numerous technical books, including the popular "Beginning E-Commerce" series. Having worked with computers since he was old enough to press the keyboard, he initially tasted programming success with a first prize in his first programming contest at the age of 12. From there, Cristian moved on to many other similar achievements, and now he is studying distributed application architectures for his PhD degree. He always loves hearing feedback about his books, so don't hesitate dropping a "hello" message when you have a spare moment. Cristian can be contacted through his personal website at www.cristiandarie.ro.

Cristian would like to express a big "thank you!" to his co-authors, Bogdan, Filip, and Mihai and to the Technical Editor of the book, Jimmy, for the hard work they've put into building this wonderful book.

Bogdan Brinzarea has a strong background in Computer Science holding a Master and Bachelor Degree at the Automatic Control and Computers Faculty of the Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania and also an Auditor diploma at the Computer Science department at Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, France.

His main interests cover a wide area from embedded programming, distributed and mobile computing, and new web technologies. Currently, he is employed as an Alternative Channels Specialist at Banca Romaneasca, Member of National Bank of Greece, where he is responsible for the Internet Banking project and coordinates other projects related to security applications and new technologies to be implemented in the banking area.

'Filip Cherecheş-Toşa is a web developer with a firm belief in the future of web-based software. He started his career at the age of 9, when he first got a Commodore 64 with tape-drive.

Back home in Romania, Filip runs a web development company named eXigo www.exigo.ro, which is actively involved in web-based application development and web design. He is currently a student at the University of Oradea, studying Computer Science, and also an active member of the Romanian PHP Community www.phpromania.net.

Mihai Bucica started programming and competing in programming contests (winning many of them), all at age twelve. With a bachelor's degree in computer science from the Automatic Control and Computers Faculty of the Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania, Bucica works on building communication software with various electronic markets.

Even after working with a multitude of languages and technologies, Bucica's programming language of choice remains C++, and he loves the LGPL word. Mihai also co-authored Beginning PHP...

Table of contents

• AJAX and PHP