13.18 Even More Things You Can Do with PHP

There are even more extensions and built-in functions available than what's discussed in this chapter. Three good places to look to learn about PHP's function library, extensions, and add-ons are:

The PHP Manual (http://www.php.net/manual/)

Available in 24 languages, the online PHP Manual has information about all of PHP's built-in functions and lots of user-contributed comments.

The PEAR Package List (http://pear.php.net/packages.php)

PEAR is a collection of hundreds of add-on packages to PHP. The DB package covered in Chapter 7 is probably the most popular one. This chapter highlights some others. When you need to solve a new problem with PHP, check out PEAR before you start to write your code. Someone may have already solved it for you.

The PECL Package List (http://pecl.php.net/packages.php)

PECL is another location for finding extensions to PHP. While the packages in PEAR are themselves written in PHP, PECL packages are written in C and provide access to external libraries or other resources.