5. PHP Libraries

The PHP is a object-oriented scripting language. Hence PHP code is "classes, classes, classes and classes". When you write PHP code you must design your classes such that they are re-usable or they use existing PHP classes. There are hundreds of PHP classes already written and ready to use. There are classes for accessing databases, classes for generating XML, HTML forms, classes for creating tables, forms and other HTML objects. If you write some generic classes then please upload to sites. By year 2005, there will be more than hundred million re-usable PHP classes. Advantage of PHP classes are they provide - data hiding, inheritance, encapsulation, reliability, reusability and polymorphism. The most important PHP sites are PHP classes and PEAR as given below.

5.1 Classes and PEAR

Visit the following web sites which have large collections of ready to use PHP class libraries.

• PHP classes are at http://phpclasses.upperdesign.com and at http://www.phpclasses.com.

• PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository) is a code repository for PHP extensions and PHP library code similar to Perl's CPAN and is at http://pear.php.net and mirror linux php-pear-rpms and pear-tutorials.

• ADODB (Active Data Objects Data Base) http://php.weblogs.com/ADODB : PHP's database access functions are not standardised. Every database extension uses a different and incompatibile API. This creates a need for a database class library to hide the differences between the different databases (encapsulate the differences) so we can easily switch databases. ADODB currently support MySQL, PostgreSQL , Interbase, Oracle, MS SQL 7, Foxpro, Access, ADO, Sybase and generic ODBC. See also ADODB-manual. The PhpLens is based on ADODB.
• Metabase (Database independent access and management) http://phpclasses.upperdesign.com/browse.html/package/20

• PHP Hot scripts http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP

• Very popular PHP resources http://php.resourceindex.com and CGI-Resources

• PHP projects are at http://php.net/projects.php

• PHP Lib Netuse http://phplib.netuse.de (This is deprecated, merged with PEAR)
• PHP widgets http://www.northern.ca/projects/phpwidgets
• Generic Framework PHP4 http://sourceforge.net/projects/gpfr
• Source Forge PHP Lib http://phplib.sourceforge.net
• Source Forge PHP Snippets, go and click on PHP here http://sourceforge.net/snippet
• E-gineer PHP lib http://e-gineer.com/articles/php-hacker
• FAQ PHP http://php.faqts.com
• PHP Lib http://px.sklar.com
• PHP Factory http://alfalinux.sourceforge.net/phpfact.php3

• PHP Builder site http://phpbuilder.com/snippet
• PHP developer http://www.phpdeveloper.org
• PHP newbie http://www.newbienetwork.net
• PHP walrus http://www.evilwalrus.com

5.2 Other PHP Utilities

Other PHP utilities are at :

• User Login sample: http://www.devshed.com/Server_Side/PHP/Commerce1

• phpPDFtable is a class written in php to ease the creation of tables in PDF files. It requires php (4.0 but should run with 3.x too), and pdflib http://sourceforge.net/projects/phppdftable

• Data-Admin aims to provide a PHP based interface to Database Administration. This will not be limited to just one or two databases. Also, the underlying class library encapsulates the native PHP database calls allowing the programmer to use one set of fu http://sourceforge.net/projects/dadmin

• PSlib is a PHP library for generating PostScript files. It offers an easy way of generating PostScript files: simple call PSlib functions from within your PHP script and the PS files are created on the fly http://sourceforge.net/projects/pslib

• A complete collection of php scripts that work tightly together to create a highly customizable, dynamic and module oriented website http://sourceforge.net/projects/twebs

• phpOpenTracker is a comprehensive solution for your site- and visitor-tracking needs. The collected data is stored in a SQL database, allowing complex, yet easy analysis. A powerful API for analysis and report generation (HTML or PDF output) is included. http://www.phpopentracker.de

• PHPShopCart is a shopping-cart web application demo written in PHP and designed to connect to a MySQL database. It was written for the book, "A Guide to Databases under Linux" (Syngress Media) but is available under the GNU Public License. http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpshopcart