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Programming in HTML and PHP : coding for scientists and engineers
Brooks D., Springer International Publishing, New York, NY, 2017. 293 pp. Type: Book (978-3-319569-72-7)
Date Reviewed: Feb 7 2018

The webpage that you read this review on is very likely coded in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Web browsers receive HTML documents from a server and render them into webpages. HTML is used to display content and to modify the appearance of that display. But HTML cannot modify the content itself. Even when using a scripting language like JavaScript, an HTML document cannot manipulate information residing outside that document. PHP is a server-based general-purpose programming language for remote or local applications that are able to interface with HTML. PHP programs can stand alone for performing computational tasks, but PHP’s most useful feature is that it can easily accept input from an HTML document, process it, and display it: tasks that scientists and engineers are particularly interested in.

The first three chapters of this book provide an introduction to HTML, from the first steps in using it for creating simple webpages, to the basic HTML elements and their attributes, including a brief introduction to cascading style sheets, and further to the more advanced features, like tables, forms, lists, and frames to organize webpages.

Chapter 4 then starts with the presentation of PHP. It shows how to set up a PHP environment for reading external files. Whereas chapter 5 introduces the syntax and some basic capabilities of the PHP language, chapter 6 shows how to use the PHP array model, a more advanced feature used to access and manipulate data. Chapter 7 presents the concept of user-defined functions and how to use them in PHP scripts. Chapter 8 deals with handling input and output, viewing the contents of variables, and manipulating strings. PHP includes a graphics library, called GD, which is presented in chapter 9. Some applications are developed for creating simple bar graphs, pie charts, and line graphs. In PHP, it is also possible to create standalone applications that accept keyboard input by running PHP code from a command line interface. This is briefly discussed in the last chapter. Some useful appendices, like a list with special characters that cannot be entered directly into an HTML document, about 30 pages of exercises, and an index, conclude the book.

The strength of this book is the many worked examples with complete and commented code listings that can be used not only by scientists and engineers, but as templates for one’s own programming projects. The book is written in a jargon-free style and requires no prior experience in programming. I recommend it to anybody who wants to build webpages with information retrieved from external files.

Reviewer:  Klaus Galensa Review #: CR145834 (1805-0218)
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