to learnhow to program PHP (( i found a book very useful... Sam in 24 hours is great! If you dont wanna spend money, then a combination of www.webmonkey.com and www.php.net is, or should be all you need
As Bogomip said, the PHP manual is very indepth. A quick google for beginners php should also yield some results. I'm currently reading PHP Fast & Easy Web Development which isnt so bad
I've read through "Beginning PHP4" by Wankyu Choi, Allan Kent, Chris Lea, Ganesh Prasad, and Chris Ullman. It's a really great resource. It approaches things from the eyes of a beginner but goes pretty in depth with things (it's about 2" thick so it goes plenty into things). But, if you're not looking for a book per se, I'd have to agree with the other replies and say the php.net documentation is great. They have some good example scripts for about every function.
I finally gave into all the emails and I bougt "Build your own Database Driven Website using PHP and MySQL" from www.sitepoint.com and within 2 months I got a job as a php scriptor. (I had never touched PHP before purchasing the book) So I'm going to highly reccomend it, but I've never bought any other PHP books, so I can't really say. The biggest advice I can give you is read through the first few chapters of the PHP manual! They've got some GREAT tips that would have saved me HOURS of work!
All in all, it comes down to reading a lot. About any book should be good. I would sugest buying a book though because, at least personally, i like having something that I can glance at quickly and hold in my hand when I want the information.
me too, i couldnt have got where i am today with PHP if i hadnt have hada book. It so much nicer than having to navigate vast websites for exactly what you want
If you want a nice in-between, I've heard www.informit.com 's $150/yr plan is pretty nice... you can read up to 120 books in a year on a wide range of topics. The only downside is no paper-copy unless you print it out yourself.
Only book ive EVER used (which was just for reference aswell) was the PHP 4 book. All you need is http://phpbuilder.com and http://php.net http://devshed.com is pretty good too, although I rarely use it.
