PHP and Databases: A Practical Guide

This book is your practical guide to the world of PHP interaction with databases. Whether you are creating a simple blog or a corporate ERP system, understanding how to work effectively with data is a key skill for any web developer.

What is this book about?

"PHP and Databases: A Practical Guide" covers all stages of work: from data schema design to writing complex queries and performance optimization. You won't find dry theory here — only proven examples and ready-made solutions.

• SQL and Relational Database Basics. Analysis of data types, indexes, and table relationships. Learn to design normalized schemas without redundancy.
• Working with PDO (PHP Data Objects). A unified interface for MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite. Protection against SQL injection via prepared statements. Transaction management.
• ORM and Query Builder. Overview of Doctrine, Eloquent, and RedBeanPHP. When to use an ORM, and when to write raw SQL.
• Performance Optimization. Query caching (Redis, Memcached), index tuning, profiling slow queries using EXPLAIN.
• Security. Protection against SQL injection, XSS attacks, proper password storage (bcrypt/argon2), working with user data.
• Advanced Techniques. Pagination, full-text search, working with JSON fields in MySQL, replication and sharding for high-load projects.

Who is this book for?

The book will be useful both for beginner PHP developers just learning to work with databases, and for experienced professionals looking to deepen their knowledge in optimization and security. If you already know how to write simple SELECT queries but want to understand JOINs, subqueries, and window functions — this book is for you.

What will you learn after reading?

• How to properly design databases for web applications.
• How to write secure and efficient PHP code for working with databases.
• How to choose between MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite depending on the task.
• How to use transactions to ensure data integrity.
• How to optimize queries and configure indexes to speed up performance.
• How to implement migrations and versioning of the database schema.

Each chapter contains code examples that you can immediately apply in your projects. All examples are tested on PHP 8.x and current DBMS versions. The book is written in simple language, without excessive academicism, but with deep immersion in the topic.

Start creating reliable and scalable PHP applications today!