Week 12

Unit Summary Week 1

Understand the different types of programming, eg Client Server, Desktop, Internet etc. Understand that we did Internet programming with PHP.

Understand programming fundamentals such as events / triggers, functions, variables, constants, control structures, loops, arrays etc…

Know basic internet fundamentals such as HTTP, HTML plus a few HTML tags.

Know the difference between server side and client side scripting, and certainly know that PHP is a server-side scripting language.

Know the difference between various applications and their purpose such as phpMyAdmin, Apache, PHP, MySQL etc…

Unit Summary Week 2

Understand what a web-form is, and the types of controls that are available. Make sure you understand how to create a web-form, post the information and handle the information.

Know the correct meaning of some of the PHP functions used to validate form elements such as isset and empty.

Understand how to write PHP code.

Understand control structures and the proper use of operators. Know what a switch statement is and why it would be used.

Understand the different types of loops

Understand arrays, array functions, indexes etc…

Unit Summary Week 3

Understand Structured programming. Know what functions are, how to define them and how to call them. Understand function parameters and return values etc…

Understand some common PHP string functions such as strlen, strtolower, substr etc, and how to use them.

Understand about external files, how to include them and why you would include them. Also have an understanding of a webpage structure as it pertains to including external files.

Unit Summary Week 4

Understand about operators and variable scope.

Understand about coding principles and documentation techniques.

Understand about HTTP being a stateless entity, and how define and if(defined…) can be used. Also include and include_once and the difference between require etc…

Unit Summary Week 5

Understand what a database is, and the common language that is used with databases (SQL).

Know the different database field types and some basic SQL commands such as INSERT, SELECT, UPDATE, DELETE. Know how to write those SQL commands, and how to read SQL.

Understand some principles of table design and how to integrate SQL with PHP; connect to DB, run query, fetch results.

Unit Summary Week 6

Know what primary keys and indexes are. Understand the importance, what they mean to a database table and any rules etc…

Have an understanding of table joins and why they are necessary. Know some SQL functions such as COUNT, MIN, MAX etc.

Know how a web-form can be used to update or insert data into a database.

Unit Summary Week 8

Understand HTTP headers, what they are and how they are used. Know about page caching.

Know the PHP header function and the use of location and refresh.

Understand what Output Buffering is, and why you might use it. Also know the functions that are associated with output buffering.

Understand the process of file uploads, the input controls (e.g. type="file"), temporary directories and the type of information that is contained within the $_FILES super global array.

Unit Summary Week 9

Know what Cookies and Sessions are, why they are used and how to use them in PHP scripts. Understand code written with the use of sessions.

Understand that Sessions are server based. Know the session functions e.g. session_start(). Know how to reference a session variable $_SESSION[‘variable_name’]. Understand the principles of session security

Understand and decipher Regular expressions (a decipher table would be provided) and know the difference between matching an entire string for a pattern as opposed to searching for a pattern within a string.

Unit Summary Lecture 10

Understand the basic steps of working with ZIP Files.

• Create Zip Object
• Open Zip File
• Do our stuff
• Close zip file

Know the basic functionality of what you can do with the ZipArchive, e.g. write, read & extract. Know that most methods are duplicated so that you can use a named parameter or an index parameter.

Know that we can use ZipArchive methods to rename and delete entries and that it can also work with directory structures within the archive as well.

Unit Summary Week 11

Configuring the php.ini file. Understand what the different settings are used for. Eg. Short_Open_Tag, Register_Globals, Display_Errors and the significance it can have when you write your scripts.

Also have an understanding of directories for file uploads, session data. Also know about the extension and include directories.

Also have an understanding of ini_set and ini_get and what they can be used for, as well as phpinfo()

Know what Apache is and how it is used to render web-pages. Know that PHP is loaded as a module and that you need to add the type in the mime_module. Understand some of the basic settings such as Listen, ServerName, DocumentRoot. Understand the basic principles of virtual hosts, and important directives such as <directory> and the use of aliases.

and Finally…

The questions that appear on the lecture notes are short bullet point concepts that you should be able to answer. They are as much of a reminder for me to cover certain points during the lectures as they are for you to gauge your understanding of the material.

You should have a copy of the mid semester test with the solutions. This should be an excellent source to prepare you for your final exam. The final exam will follow the same format and style of questions as the mid semester except that the final exam will have questions covering weeks 1-12.

Good Luck.