Book excerpt: Build Dynamic Websites with PHP and MySQL—and Extend Those Sites with Web Services PHP and MySQL are great tools for building database-driven websites. There's nothing new about that. What is new is the environment in which your site operates—a world rich (and growing richer) in web services that can add value and functionality in many different ways. Creating Interactive Web Sites with PHP and Web Services walks you through every step of a major web project—a content-management system—teaching you both the basic techniques and little-known tricks you need to build successful web sites. And you can use those skills to develop dynamic applications that will meet your special requirements. Here's some of what you'll find covered inside: Adding, deleting, and displaying data with a custom content-management system Building a template system with PHP Interacting with web services using PHP and MySQL Creating and managing a user system and a shopping cart Processing credit card payments using merchant accounts and third-party payment solutions Tracking site statistics using PHP and MySQL Enhancing your site with third-party scripts Tons of examples, complete with explanations and supported by online source code, will speed your progress, whether you're a true beginner or already have PHP experience. This book is platform-agnostic, so it doesn't matter if you're deploying your site on Linux or Windows. You also get PHP and MySQL references, so you can quickly resolve questions about syntax and similar issues.