PHP 7 Zend Certification Study Guide, 1st ed. Ace the ZCE 2017-PHP Exam

Improve your programming knowledge and become Zend Certified. This book closely follows the ZCE2017-PHP exam syllabus and adds important details that help candidates to prepare for the test. 

Zend Certification is an industry recognized standard for PHP engineers.  It is very difficult to pass the examination without extensive preparation.  Unlike other books on PHP, this book is very focused on reaching industry standards.The Zend examination syllabus is comprised of three focus areas and a number of additional topics. This book explains the structure of the examination and then addresses each of the topics for PHP 7.

A short quiz follows each chapter to help identify gaps in your knowledge. PHP 7 Zend Certification Study Guide also contains a practice test containing 70 questions from the entire syllabus to use when reviewing for your exams. The book provides original code examples throughout and every php featured is explained clearly with examples and uses an efficient way to describe the most important details of the particular feature. 

Intermediate PHP programmers with two or three years of experience who are appearing for the Zend certification exams and programmers who are proficient in other languages, but want a quick reference book to dive into PHP.

Introduction. The Zend Certification Syllabus

A basic introduction to the latest syllabus of the ZCE2017 exam and analyze the topics of the exam. IT will also talk about choosing the correct strategy.

The chapter takes a look at the general syntax used in PHP programming. 

Variable Functions

Returns

Variable Scope

Callables, Lambdas, and closures

They are a series of bytes and do not contain any information about how those bytes should be translated to characters. Topics covered:

Declaring Strings

Referencing characters in strings

PHP and multibyte strings

Matching Strings

Extracting strings

Searching Strings

Replacing strings

Formatting Strings

Formatting Numbers

String Patterns – Regular Expressions

Here we will take a look at a number of array functions offered in PHP. Topics covered will be:

Declaring and referencing arrays

Quirks of PHP array keys

Filling up arrays

Push, pop, shift, and unshift

Comparing Arrays

Combining Arrays

Iterating through arrays

Sorting Arrays

Object Orientated code runs slower than procedural code but makes it easier to model and manipulate complex data structures. Topics will be:

Declaring Classes and Instantiating Objects

Visibility or Access Modifiers

Instance Properties and Methods

Static Methods and Properties

Working with Objects

Constructors and Destructors

Inheritance

Interfaces

Exceptions

Reflection

Type Hinting

Class Constants

Late Static Binding

Magic (__*) Met

Generators

Traits

This is one of the key topics of the exam. The chapter will provide you a strategy to take up for securing your applications and servers. 

Configuration

Session Security

Cross-Site Scripting

Cross-Site Request Forgeries

SQL Injection

Remote Code Injection

Email Injection

Filter Input

Escape Output

Encryption, Hashing algorithms

File uploads

Database storage

Avoid publishing your password online

The chapter takes a look at the various data formats used with PHP applications. Though questions on this topic are rare, you can expect to be asked a

XML

SOAP

REST web services

JSON

Date and Time

PHP 7.1streams as a way of generalizing file, network, data compression, and other operations that share a set of common set of functions and uses.

Files

File System Functions

Streams

This chapter will teach you the web features of PHP. Topics covered will be:

Sessions

Starting a Session

Session Identifier and Session Variables

Logging a User Out

Session Handlers

GET and POST data

Encoding data into URLs

File Uploads

Forms

Form elements

HTTP Headers

HTTP Authentication

HTTP Status Codes

PHP uses extensions to interact with a range of databases. This chapter will shed some light on the same. Topics are:

Introduction to Databases

Working with SQL

Joins

Prepared Statements

Transactions