I got this book to learn the basics of MySQL and get a background in PHP beyond what I happened to pick up on my own. This book is good, a little funny (as all For Dummies books should be), an easy read, and full of good information. It doesn't really go into much detail on what PHP can do except for in terms of MySQL. (I guess, get a book dedicated to just PHP if you want to learn what the language can really do.)
The biggest problem I have with this book is the countless typos, particularly in the code (which is the worst place for typos). Pretty disappointing for a 4th edition. For example, on the very last page (438, the index), it lists, under 'Y', ysquli_num_fields($result) function, but it is actually "mysqli....." (with the m in front). It is sometimes inconsistant with variable functions (like $firstname vs $firstName) which can cause problems, it talks about the "xor" operator but refers to it once as "or" which causes confusion, most of the time the die() function is used, there is a space before the parenthesis (which I haven't tested myself to see if that is ok, but I would think a function needs the parenthesis right after the word with no space). Some other things that annoy me are more annoying than they are serious, like inconsistant spacing in code, or I saw once where the '$' mark before an in-text variable name that wasn't formatted with the same font as the variable name itself. Also, the author's use of HTML doesn't really jive with me (some minor coding problems) but it's not a huge deal either. Or, there are some places where quote marks in code are bottom-quote-marks (looks like double-commas) instead of normal quote marks as they should look. These are mainly annoyances and not serious problems if you know to keep your eyes open.
