tech-studies

PHP

3 min read

PHP

roadmap.sh: https://roadmap.sh/php

Suggested path through the PHP nodes. Each node links to its lesson when written.

Nodes

Getting started

  • What is PHP?
  • History and versions (PHP 5 vs 7 vs 8)
  • Installing PHP locally
  • CLI vs web server execution
  • PHP-FPM and the SAPI model
  • php.ini configuration
  • Running a built-in dev server

Language basics

  • Syntax and embedding in HTML
  • Variables and variable scope
  • Data types and type juggling
  • Constants and enums
  • Operators
  • Strings and string functions
  • Arrays (indexed, associative, multidimensional)
  • Control structures (if, switch, match)
  • Loops (for, foreach, while)
  • Functions and arrow functions
  • Variadic and named arguments
  • Null safety and the null coalescing operator
  • Superglobals (_POST, _SESSION)

Object-oriented PHP

  • Classes and objects
  • Properties, methods, and visibility
  • Constructors and constructor promotion
  • Static members
  • Inheritance
  • Interfaces
  • Abstract classes
  • Traits
  • Enums (backed and pure)
  • Magic methods (__get, __set, __invoke, __toString)
  • Late static binding
  • Readonly properties
  • Namespaces
  • Anonymous classes

Type system and quality

  • Type declarations (scalar, union, intersection)
  • Nullable and nullsafe types
  • Strict types declare()
  • Attributes (annotations)
  • Static analysis (PHPStan, Psalm)
  • Coding standards (PSR-1, PSR-12)
  • PHP-CS-Fixer

Error and exception handling

  • Errors vs exceptions
  • try / catch / finally
  • Custom exception classes
  • Throwable hierarchy
  • Error reporting levels
  • Logging errors

Tooling and ecosystem

  • Composer (dependency management)
  • Autoloading (PSR-4)
  • PSR standards overview
  • PHP-FIG
  • Packagist
  • Useful CLI tools

Working with data

  • Forms and request handling
  • Sessions and cookies
  • File I/O and streams
  • JSON encode/decode
  • Working with dates (DateTime)
  • Regular expressions (PCRE)
  • Filtering and validating input

Databases

  • PDO
  • MySQLi
  • Prepared statements
  • Transactions
  • Connection handling
  • ORMs (Doctrine, Eloquent)

Security

  • SQL injection prevention
  • XSS prevention and output escaping
  • CSRF protection
  • Password hashing (password_hash / verify)
  • Input sanitization
  • Secure session configuration
  • HTTPS and secure cookies

Testing

  • PHPUnit
  • Unit vs integration tests
  • Mocking and test doubles
  • Pest
  • Code coverage

Web and APIs

  • HTTP request lifecycle
  • Building REST APIs
  • PSR-7 HTTP messages
  • Middleware (PSR-15)
  • Frameworks overview (Laravel, Symfony, Slim)
  • Templating (Twig, Blade)

Advanced topics

  • Generators and iterators
  • Closures and binding
  • Reflection API
  • Dependency injection and containers
  • Design patterns in PHP
  • Async PHP (Fibers, ReactPHP, Swoole)
  • Caching (OPcache, APCu, Redis)
  • Performance profiling (Xdebug, Blackfire)
  • Deployment and process managers

Resources

See resources.md.

Project ideas

  • Build a small MVC framework from scratch (router, container, PDO-backed model layer) to understand what Laravel/Symfony do under the hood.
  • Create a REST API for a task manager using PSR-7/PSR-15 middleware, PDO with prepared statements, and PHPUnit tests for each endpoint.
  • Write a Composer-installable package (with PSR-4 autoloading, PHPStan, and CI) and publish it to Packagist.

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