ASP -> PHP 2

[Rydel]

Dear gurus,

I decided to start switching from ASP to PHP for a series of reasons (our company will be having more UNIX servers; I'd like to widen my skills). In regard to that I have two questions:

1) Are there any good tutorials in PHP for those who already know ASP.
2) Are there are tools that translate VBScript code into equivalent PHP code (I have some highly customized ASP code that goes beyond trivial forums, counters, voting or other utils).

Thanks in advance for any help! ---

http://www.geocities.com/rydel23/

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[Glowball]

I moved from ASP to PHP as well. I picked up Wrox Publishing's "Professional PHP Programming" but didn't even have to read it. It's pretty basic, and frankly much easier to work with than ASP if you ask me. I just went through line by line and looked up what I needed to know.

I've since read the book a couple of times and it has been very helpful (I highly recommend it).

Your VBScript code will be so different in structure than PHP code that I can't imagine something that would translate and get it right with any real accuracy. There might be something out there, though. If your real goal is to learn, there is no better way than to translate from something you already know, yes?

Oh, and if you are at all familiar or comfortable with Perl than learning PHP should be a breeze for you. I've also found PHPBuilder.com to be a good reference. Good luck!

 

[rycamor]

There is a script out there that is supposed to help with that, called ASP2PHP, at

http://asp2php.naken.cc/.

(there is even a Windows GUI to assist)

I have not tried it myself, so I can't give any input as to the quality of the translation. I suspect that it might be useful, but in the end, you will still be rewriting many things, as you learn more about PHP.

As Glowball says, PHP will probably lead you to structure your code differently (better!) than PHP. You will find that you can often accomplish the same thing in about 1/3 the code it would take in ASP/VBScript. Also, the fact that you will be moving to Unix servers (yay!) will eventually lead you to approach some things differently.

The coolest thing about PHP is that the documentation at the website is so straightforward. And there is a "quick search" facility, where you can just enter the website URL as

http://php.net/{your

search term}. For example

http://php.net/array

instantly takes you to the documentation on PHP's array functionality.

A couple of good sites for tutorials:

http://www.zend.com/

(the engine behind PHP)

http://php.weblogs.com/

http://phpbuilder.com/

http://www.devshed.com/

 

[Rydel]

Thank you very much, gentlemen! You both were very helpful.
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