Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours (3rd Edition) by Matt Zandstra

Consisting of 24 one-hour lessons, Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours, is divided into five sections that guide the reader through the language from the basics to advanced functions. The first section of the book teaches the fundamentals of PHP. And then, sections two through four shows the reader how to apply that knowledge in order to interact with the user by creating and managing forms, cookies and authentication. It also teaches how to access databases and how to integrate system components, e-mail, LDAP, network sockets and much more.