The PHP language is in use today at over 12 million Internet domains worldwide, and continues to grow in popularity at an astonishing rate of almost 400,000 domains a month. The latest version, PHP 5, is expected to reach final form in 2004. It is a significant new release that speeds up performance, improves XML and streams support, and includes many new functions. PHP 5 increases the appeal of PHP to serious programmers who have not used it before, and it requires current PHP users to re-learn many things as to how they have approached PHP in the past. PHP Unleashed provides a complete, practical, and authoritative guide for both the experienced programmer who is considering PHP for the first time and the current PHP user who wants to learn more about PHP 5 and how to fully exploit all its new capabilities. The book begins with a detailed summary of the basics, and then quickly moves on to more advanced topics such as working with data, outputting graphical data, interacting with messaging servers, and building complete applications.