Level 1 – Introducing PHP

• 1.0 What is PHP?
• 1.1 Programming language used primarily for server-side scripting
• 1.2 Blend of PERL and C
• 1.3 Embedded into HTML code

• 2.0 HTML review
• 2.1 Basic HTML file layout
• 2.2 HTML tags used to format the text
• 2.3 HMTL form and user control tags

• 3.0 Embedding PHP tags
• 3.1 Opening and closing tags
• 3.2 Text insertion shortcut tag
• 3.3 Include and Require

• 4.0 Installing PHP
• 4.1 Windows and IIS
• 4.2 Unix and Apache
• 4.3 Configuring the install

• 5.0 Intro to Zend Studio integrated development environment (IDE)
• 5.1 Installing the evaluation version
• 5.2 Features of the IDE
• 5.3 Demo

• 6.0 Recap of Level 1

Level 2 – Basic Syntax

• 1.0 Identifiers
• 1.1 What is an identifier?
• 1.2 Rules for creating identifier names

• 2.0 Literals, constants, and variables
• 2.1 Literal data
• 2.2 When and how to use a constant
• 2.3 Declaring and assigning variables
• 2.4 Variable datatypes and type conversion
• 2.5 Substituting variables into string literals

• 3.0 Operators
• 3.1 Available operators
• 3.2 Operator evaluation order, precedence, and association

• 4.0 Arrays
• 4.1 Declaring and initializing an array
• 4.2 Accessing members of an array by index
• 4.3 Multidimensional arrays

• 5.0 Outputting text
• 5.1 Raw HTML
• 5.2 echo
• 5.3 print

• 6.0 Recap of Level 2

Level 3 – More Syntax

• 1.0 Control structures (conditionals and loops)
• 1.1 Conditionals (if and switch)
• 1.2 Loops (for, while, and do while)

• 2.0 Declaring and using functions
• 2.1 Calling built-in functions
• 2.2 Creating a user-defined function

• 3.0 Variable scope
• 3.1 Local

• 3.2 Global
• 3.3 SuperGlobal

• 4.0 Processing form and session data with SuperGlobals
• 4.1 _GET
• 4.2 _POST
• 4.3 _SESSION

• 5.0 Recap of Level 3

Level 4 – Persisting Data

• 1.0 Reading and writing files
• 1.1 Finding and manipulating files
• 1.2 Opening, reading, writing, and closing files
• 1.3 Other interesting file functions

• 2.0 Database access from within PHP
• 2.1 Database support in PHP
• 2.2 Generic database functions
• 2.3 Database-specific extensions
• 2.4 Database example using MySQL

• 3.0 Recap of Level 4

Level 5 – Introduction to Advanced Topics

• 1.0 Handling strings and dates
• 1.1 String literals revisited
• 1.2 String handling functions
• 1.3 String regular expressions
• 1.4 Date functions

• 2.0 Object oriented programming and PHP
• 2.1 Concepts of OOP
• 2.2 Interface your code with COM
• 2.3 Creating and using custom objects in PHP

• 3.0 Debugging web pages with Zend Studio
• 3.1 Server and client components of Zend Studio
• 3.2 Setting breakpoints in you code
• 3.3 Starting the debugger
• 3.4 Examining variables

• 4.0 Certification requirements
• 4.1 Why should I get certified?
• 4.2 What is PHP certification?
• 4.3 How do I get certified?

• 5.0 Recap of Level 5