After you have learned the basic PHP concepts, it is time to progress to more advanced PHP topics such as sessions and cookies.

As your program gets larger, it is best practice to start using PHP objects and PHP includes. Inevitably, there will be bugs in the program as you are developing it, so you will also need to learn how debug PHP and be familiar with PHP error handling.

Finally, one has to be familiar with PHP security. Code security in PHP is such a big topic that we have organized the resources on the “PHP Code Security” page.

Sessions

• Short video tutorial on Sessions
• More detailed videos on sessions: part 1, part 2, and part 3 on killerphp.com
• PHP Session on tizag.com
• Sessions and Cookies – on PHPFreaks.com

Cookies

• Short Video tutorial about Cookies on learningnerd.com
• PHP Cookies on php-learn-in.com

Using Includes

• Creating websites using PHP includes – typical way to use PHP includes for header, footer, and sidebar
• Video introduction on include, require, include_once, and require_once on learningnerd.com
• Video tutorials on using includes part 1 and part 2 on killerphp.com
• See PHP Manual on include, include_once, require, and require_once

Object Oriented PHP

• Object Oriented PHP for beginners – step-by-step tutorial with 22 steps and some video tutorials
• Object Oriented concepts in PHP part 1, part 2, and part 3 on phpfreaks.com

Debugging PHP

• Debugging: A Beginner’s Guide on phpfreaks.com

Error Handling

• PHP Manual: Error Handling

Useful PHP Tasks

• Basic Pagination
• PHP and XML
• Contact Form Processing with protection against hijacking