[gmb1994]

I found some books on PHP/MySQL listed in the "Resources" thread.

Which books are the best to learn PHP/MySQL?

Which books are great comprehensive reference texts?

[phprogramming]

any books from the peachpit press

[kidavi]

Larry Ulman has a few nice ones... PHP and MySQL For Dynamic Websites is the one i have, twenty-five bucks at Border's.

[1jetsam]

For learning MySQL, I have a book called "Beginning PHP, MySQL, Apache Web Developement" by Glass, Scouarnec, Naramore, Mailer, Stolz, Gerner, Published by wrox publishing. You can download the codes used in the book (p2p.wrox.com -> look carefully and you will find the link. It ONLY has the codes, so it won't be much help otherwise).
But it is not for PHP beginners. Well it can be, but I recomend it for people who know some PHP prior to reading the book. Also the book doesn't say anything about Apache, except in the apendix. Its a good book other than that.

[toyotaTRD]

one i've read recently was "PHP & MySQL Manual" from simon stobart and mike vassileiou. do you know what's the bast? they give you 50MB free space in a php supported server. ( you may find it normal but ask me that, freeservers.com doesn't support php )

[wheat]

I like the Wrox books best. I learned a lot from Beginning PHP4. That's out of date now, but they have a a PHP5 book or two. Any of them, I'm sure, will get you started. If you're entirely new to SQL, Ben Forta's slim Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes (on Sams press) is wonderful. The best reference is actually the function reference at php.net. You can look up anything there and the user comments provide tons of tips.

[1jetsam]

Originally Posted by wheat

I like the Wrox books best. I learned a lot from Beginning PHP4. That's out of date now, but they have a a PHP5 book or two. Any of them, I'm sure, will get you started. If you're entirely new to SQL, Ben Forta's slim Teach Yourself SQL in 10 Minutes (on Sams press) is wonderful. The best reference is actually the function reference at php.net. You can look up anything there and the user comments provide tons of tips.

I don't think it is that out of date.. Can you explain why PHP 5 is out, when PHP 4.3.10 just came out?! I think PHP 4.3.x and PHP 5 are slightly different.. Maybe its just me, but..

Not all Wrox books are that great. I have a wrox book that is horriable, but then again it was really cheap, and is an older Wrox book.
I don't like Sams books very much. I guess this all goes down to a matter of oppinion.

[wheat]

Well, I've had three or four Wrox books and I've liked every one. So, opinions being what they are... But PHP 4.x has been out for a while now. You can still learn a lot from a PHP 4 book. But since PHP 5.x offers some new features, why not start with the latest? Beginning PHP 4 came out in 2000. A lot has changed in web development since then. PHP4 has been with us a long time now.

I'd probably go with this one, which someone else mentioned.

There are a lot of Sams books that I don't like, but Ben Forta (who was one of the inventors of ColdFusion) is a good writer and his SQL book is really handy. I know two other professional PHP-coders who swear by it. You'll get some SQL in most any PHP book, but having a reference is handy.