Chapter 3. Server-Side Techniqueswith PHP and MySQL

If AJAX is mainly about building smarter clients, then the servers these clients talk to must be equally smart, otherwise they won’t get along very well for too long.

In Chapter 2, you only read static text or XML files from the server. In this chapter, we start putting the server side to work, with PHP to generate dynamic output, and MySQL to manipulate and store the back-end data. In this chapter, you will learn how to:

• Use PHP to perform functionality on the server side

• Let clients communicate with the server by passing parameters

• Use XML on the client and the server

• Use PHP scripts to avoid potential JavaScript security problems

• Perform repetitive tasks in your client

• Work with MySQL databases

• Optimize your application’s architecture