Rating: 
Summary: Intro to Everything
Review: "PHP XML" does a great job of covering a little bit of everything you can accomplish using PHP and XML. There's so much to cover, though, that a thorough, in-depth discussion of each is impossible in the scope of one book. Rather, the book teaches a programmer enough about the various technologies that they are much better prepared to make initial design decisions in their projects, and have enough example code to get their feet wet with the code to implement those decisions.I'd recommend the book to anyone who'd like a convenient all-in-one-place reference to XML-related technologies and how PHP interacts with them. The book enables a developer to not just pick a tool because it's available, but to make intelligent decisions about which tool is best for their purposes. It also gives one enough of a head start that understanding much deeper and more technical information on the web or in other books (XSLT Programmers Reference 2nd Edition, Pro PHP4, etc...) becomes easier to digest.
Rating: 
Summary: Intro to everything...
Review: "PHP XML" does a great job of covering a little bit of everything you can accomplish using PHP and XML. There's so much to cover, though, that a thorough, in-depth discussion of each is impossible in the scope of one book. Rather, the book teaches a programmer enough about the various technologies that they are much better prepared to make initial design decisions in their projects, and have enough example code to get their feet wet with the code to implement those decisions. I'd recommend the book to anyone who'd like a convenient all-in-one-place reference to XML-related technologies and how PHP interacts with them. The book enables a developer to not just pick a tool because it's available, but to make intelligent decisions about which tool is best for their purposes. It also gives one enough of a head start that understanding much deeper and more technical information on the web or in other books (XSLT Programmers Reference 2nd Edition, Pro PHP4, etc...) becomes easier to digest.
Rating:
Summary: Great book - for intermediate to advanced php programmers
Review: A really well made book! A good introduction to XML and a complete overview of php/xml interaction.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Book on PHP ever
Review: As a beginner to PHP and XML i was a bit hesistant to
pick up this book, but as i flipped through the first few chapters in a book store i was sure this was the book for me.
I have read this giant of a book from cover to cover and i am well on my way to practically implementing the concepts i picked up (esp. in the XML RPC chapter and example) at work here.Here is a breakdown of who should read what: *Beginner to PHP and XML: Cover to Cover;)
*Beginner to PHP, Proficient in XML : Again Cover to Cover;)
*Proficient in PHP, Proficient in XML : Can afford to skip first few chapters No doubt this is the best book i have read. Kudos to all involved.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Work!
Review: At Maguma, we've specialized in developing products entirely based on PHP and are tremendous supports of PHP and the open-source community. We'd just like to say that this book should assists all developers in using XML within their PHP products. We'd like to say congratulations to all the authors for writing this book as it has been a pleasure reading it and spreading it around the office.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Work!
Review: At Maguma, we've specialized in developing products entirely based on PHP and are tremendous supports of PHP and the open-source community. We'd just like to say that this book should assists all developers in using XML within their PHP products. We'd like to say congratulations to all the authors for writing this book as it has been a pleasure reading it and spreading it around the office.
Rating:
Summary: Some Thoughts About The Books Goals
Review: Hi, my name is Ken Egervari and I am one the authors which make available this great title to you fellow PHP programmers and XML enthusiasts. Seeing as I wrote 3 chapters (SAX, DOM and XSLT) as well as the Object Oriented Programming appendix, you might assume there is a conflict of interest with this review. Let me assure you, despite my involvement with this title, I promise to be objective and simply state the goals of the book. This really isn't a review as some thoughts about the book. After receiving my copy, I've been reading the entire book and as a whole, Professional PHP4 XML covers every inch of these topics in fantastic detail. I sincerely believe that new-comers to XML (and even PHP) will definitely find a wealth of information to get them started and expert programmers will enjoy the rich, deep knowledge contained in each subject, demonstrating the experience and thoroughness of all the authors who contributed to make this book the very best. To start off my review, I want to take a look at the chapters in which I contributed, making clear to you the goals of each topic. Unlike many PHP books on the market, I didn't 'just' want to demonstrate the concepts and APIs; I really wanted to engage the reader into thinking creatively about their PHP applications by thinking about architecture and design and sharing valuable insights in areas concerned weather it be programming issues, common solutions to recurring problems, best practices, or changes to the APIs in future releases. Given that I am as much of a businessman as an architect, I also wanted to reader to consider the various business-related issues with each technology by providing valuable insight on the consequences to using these technologies in your organization. I wanted to enlighten the reader rather than bore them with functional descriptions and basic examples. As you read the book, you'll clearly see the book lives up to these goals. My first task was to write a chapter on SAX. I've read many chapters on SAX from other texts or articles on the Internet, but I really wanted to take this one over and beyond what was already out there. Besides looking at the core concepts, process and various implementations, I explain in detail on how to create highly reusable, maintainable parsers by making use of object-oriented technology. I further explained how to deal with common problems when parsing erroneous generated XML content. Given that there are many hacked up Web Service-like URLs and XML generators out there, this section was much needed. The DOM chapter continues teaching the reader about XML parsering by diving into the details on creating and manipulating DOM trees using PHP 4.2.1 and 4.3.0. This is something no book on the market has at the time of this review. The chapter shows countless number of examples to ensure the reader understands how to construct trees. The chapter dives into the architecture of DOM parsers and suggests much easier ways to simplify the construction of your applications. Given the DOM API is still new, the chapter outlines many of its current limitations and problems in great detail, ensuring the reader doesn't get fowled up in any dirty business that they can't fix without starring at their monitor for several hours only to see it's a problem with the API itself. This chapter discusses several larger applications that are interactive using HTML forms to show the reader how to construct XML content in an organized manner. The last chapter, XSLT, discussed most of the XSLT standard as well as its use within PHP. This is useful since you don't need to purchase another XSLT book in the future as this chapter, as well as the appendix, should provide you with all the knowledge you'll need for years to come. Given that XSLT isn't used as much as it should, I spent a great deal outlining the various advantages and disadvantages pragmatically. Besides looking at the concepts and the XSL document standards, the chapter goes beyond simple XSL documents and explains how to build dynamic PHP scripts, interops with legacy applications, discusses the construction of multi-tiered applications, uses XSLT as a functional language, and even explains some recursive techniques to solve complicated document generation problems. Many times programmers are confused on which technology to use; this chapter compares SAX, DOM and XSLT and helps the reader decide which technology is best for your project and organization's goals. Lastly, XSLT is often overlooked when it can offer a very elegant and platform independent solution! The chapter thoroughly explains the various applications XSLT is used and even gives the reader with some vision and direction as I described how various projects used XSLT skillfully. I hope these review helps inform you about the book's content. I hope you enjoy the book as we all did writing it. Happy reader and thanks for listening.
Rating:
Summary: excellent guide to using xml with php
Review: I echo the praise already given in detail by the other reviewers here. This book gives an excellent detailed account of XML technology as well as the application of XML in combination with PHP. I was completely new to XML and found the text easy to follow and the concepts were easily applied by examining the example code. Please note that this is NOT a book for those new to PHP, it is for an experienced PHP programmer (in my opinion). It does give an overview of many aspects of PHP, but if you are brand new to PHP, I would recommend starting with a Beginning PHP text. Beginning PHP4 by Wrox is an excellent place to start. There are several others. If you're familiar with PHP, though, and looking to expand your skills or your project to include XML, this text is the place to look.
Rating:
Summary: excellent guide to using xml with php
Review: I echo the praise already given in detail by the other reviewers here. This book gives an excellent detailed account of XML technology as well as the application of XML in combination with PHP. I was completely new to XML and found the text easy to follow and the concepts were easily applied by examining the example code. Please note that this is NOT a book for those new to PHP, it is for an experienced PHP programmer (in my opinion). It does give an overview of many aspects of PHP, but if you are brand new to PHP, I would recommend starting with a Beginning PHP text. Beginning PHP4 by Wrox is an excellent place to start. There are several others. If you're familiar with PHP, though, and looking to expand your skills or your project to include XML, this text is the place to look.
Rating:
Summary: A lot of hard work puts out a great book
Review: I have a friend is one of the main co-authors of this book, and let me tell you something else none of these reviews on here can tell you. Maybe to your surprise, authors do a lot of hard work and gain very little financially for their efforts. Firstly, they need to be excellent writers and must be on an expert on the material they are writing about itself. It's something that many people have a hard time focusing on one of these abilities, nevermind being able to do both. Mix in the sound project management and business advice where it applies, and you have a very rich and meaningful book that is more than just the code. My friend honestly put 2 weeks of solid 12 hours a day into each chapter he committed to this great book (which was 3) as well as another month and a half on his upcoming book as well. This man was determined to write the best book possible, explaining not just the hows, but the whys and everything else in between. After an exhausted effort, he delivered an amazingly useful and creative book - all of the reviews here are telling you the truth. A book that helped me understand not only XML or PHP a bit better, but helped me look at programming in a different way (as he commits himself to doing every day). By reading his work and seeing his endless commitment, he's a man that I'm proud to call my friend, and if you read his work too, you'd realize it's true. I hope you can support my friend in his great effort to bring you the quality chapters that he contributed. After learning that he simply broke even from writing the book in the first place, we - the fellow PHP programmers of the world - should show our support and encourage him so we can read more of his (as well the other authors) great work.
| 
