Brian Swan has posted a new guide for those wanting to get started using the SQL Server driver for PHP in their application development. His target of choice for the example is a SQL Server Express database.

I'll build a web page that exposes enough of the driver functionality for you to understand the basics of connecting to a server, inserting and retrieving data, and handling errors. A quick note about simplicity: The web page I'll build in this post is very simple – it's just a simple form, really. It collects information about people who are registering for some fictional event. I'm intentionally keeping it very simple so I can focus on the PHP code for using the driver.

He walks you through the full process - everything from the installation of the driver to creating the database and, finally, building the page that connects to the SQL Server database and inserts/selects data from the sample table.