ABSTRACT
PHP has many built-in tools that can be leveraged for secure coding. This chapter gives an overview of these tools and serves as an introduction to why they are used in building the secure application example code in the second part of the book. Many of the tools outlined here are viewed from a security perspective, so examples are given as to why they are important and how they can be leveraged to achieve more secure code.
PHP is a procedural language and/or an Object-Oriented (OO) language. A developer can use the language either way, or in a mixture of ways. The languages object constructs are a great way to encapsulate and isolate functionality. In this chapter we look at how to make use of the many OO features to enhance and enforce security.
