It is common to add a drop-down select box that is populated with USA states or Canadian provinces to PHP applications. There are basically three ways to do this. You can hard-code all of the Select box selections into your application, you can add the states to a MySQL database manually, or you can use the handy code on this page to create a States table in MySQL in just a few seconds. (more…)

A shopping cart is an essential component of every e-commerce site. Although there are literally hundreds of shopping carts to choose from, only a few stand out. PHP is the preferred shopping cart language because it is the most popular web development language on the Internet. When combined with the MySQL database, PHP is unbeatable for cost effectiveness. (more…)

I am finding that an increasing number of hosting companies appear to be configuring their servers to allow the file listings of web site directories to be viewed by users. I don’t know why they are doing this. It can be a serious breach of security that may allow a hacker to gain information about a site that can be used to hack the site. It is always a good idea to take steps to prevent the listing of directory files.
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A full-text search allows a search of multiple text columns. If you are setting up a search of a series of articles or a site with lots of product-related content, a MySQL FULLTEXT search can make it very easy to find articles or products related to the keywords used by a searcher. This search method does exactly what its name implies–it allows a full search of large text fields. A FULLTEXT search is easy to set up if you just follow these simple instructions. (more…)

There is a little-known web design problem that can prevent search engine spiders from finding the content on web pages. It’s called excessive table nesting and the problem is more common than most designers and site owners think. (more…)

Learning how to use the MySQL database properly can take quite a bit of time. It is not uncommon to select a less than optimal data type when setting up a new table. Multiple data types are available for each value that you wish to store. This MySQL data type tutorial is intended to help take some of the mystery out of the proper type selections for database columns. (more…)

This is a simple PHP script that takes data from a MySQL table and uses it to generate a drop-down select box for an HTML form. This can be used for a list of states on a credit card or user data form, or for a category selection or something where you need to pull the selections from a MySQL table. The script uses PHP to generate the HTML that is sent to the user’s browser. (more…)

The ternary operator is a shortcut comparison operator that replaces an if-else statement in a PHP script. If you use a lot of comparison statements in your scripts, this can greatly reduce the number of lines of code. The ternary operator is really very simple to use, but it does tend to confuse newbie PHP programmers. (more…)

Most new web developers have heard of SQL injection attacks, but not very many know that it is fairly easy to prevent an attacker from gaining access to your data by filtering out the vulnerabilities using MySQL extensions found in PHP. (more…)

External CSS style sheets offer numerous benefits to web site design. This tutorial assumes that you already know something about the use of cascading style sheets. Our focus is on helping you to implement it better with your web site. (more…)