For those using (or wanting to use) the SQL Server driver for PHP via PDO, Brian Swan has a handy resource for you - a PDO Cheat Sheet.

With this weeks release of the SQL Server Driver for PHP 2.0 CTP 1 (which includes a PDO driver for SQL Server), I need to get up to speed quickly. And, the truth is, I'm fairly inexperienced with PDO, so a cheat sheet is helping me learn the API. Besides, there are some constants that are database specific...I don't stand a chance of keeping those at the ready without a cheat sheet.

This cheat sheet is for this first release of the PDO driver, so it'll probably change as time goes on, but it's a good starting place. You can find out more details about the methods and constants mentioned on the PDO page of the PHP.net site.

Arniie had an interesting experience with taking the Zend Certified Engineer test recently - especially once he found an unfair advantage.

So we embarked on a voyage of PHP/Zend (re-)discovery, we booked iBuildings to do a re-examination of our PHP knowledge - a refresher course if you will. [...] In exam euphoria (and depression) [after coworkers had taken the exam] a few questions were discussed to demonstrate the intensity of the exam. I promptly 'googled': "PHP extensions using the dl() function" and low and behold: http://www.exam4test.com/200-500.htm

His google result turned up a page with 20 example questions from the test and the possibility of more just $49 USD more. The site was providing a direct means to pass the test without knowing much PHP at all. He notes that this one thing is enough to disillusion his about the quality and merit of the exam.

Scott Klarr has pulled together a listing of the top cheat sheets that he's found out there relating to PHP (and things surrounding it) like:

• this one from blueshoes.org
• a sheet covering filtering and escaping
• a Smarty cheat sheet
• a few covering WordPress
• and ones covering CakePHP and Drupal

Check out his page for more (and thumbnails for each).

Harry Fuecks has gotten busy and posted the third part of his "Joy of Regular Expressions" series over on the SitePoint PHP Blog today.

Following on from the last part, this one is more of an intermission-a round up of regex syntax seen so far and a couple of links following feedback.

He looks at two different topics:

• A "must reads" section of resources for getting the most out of regular expressions
• A comprehensive "cheat sheet" with tips on expression delimiters, literals, pattern modifiers, character classes, quantifiers, assertions, sub-patterns, and working with the blackslash.

One of the more elusive concepts of programming can be working with regular expressions. Now, there's lots of places to learn them and to get a handle on what they can do (such as this book), but what if you don't need the full-blown reference and just want a quick and dirty reference source? AddedBytes.com is happy to be of service with their latest cheat sheet divided up into the different formats (anchors, character classes, assertions, escape characters, etc).

The Regular Expressions cheat sheet is designed to be printed on an A4 sheet of paper and live by a designer or developer's desk, to make life a bit easier. A description of what is on the cheat sheet follows, or if you are impatient, you can go straight to the full size Regular Expressions cheat sheet.

This time, they've posted it in a few different formats, including a torrent file to make for faster/easier download. They still have the usual methods (PDF and PNG) but you'll need to visit the page for those links - it's been requested not to directly link to them.

Davey Shafik has created a cheat sheet useful for any developer out there using a database, one to remind you of the filtering and escaping techniques to use before putting data into your database or outputting it to your site.

You can grab the cheat sheet here in a PDF format.

And PHP Markdown Extra adds a few niceties, like Markdown inside HTML block tags, simple tables, and definition lists. It just drops straight into WordPress and away you go.

For more information on Markdow (or it's use in PHP), you can check out the Markdown manual first and the PHP one to follow up...

Robert Kline has a handy little cheat sheet to translate Perl to PHP or vice versa. It's been quite some time since I had written any Perl, besides a quick parser or two. This certainly does the trick for me in getting my thinking correct for the Perl syntax. I would assume Perl hackers would say the same thing when needing to use PHP.

The sheet goes through things like arrays, array split/joins, string comparisons, HTML elements, and MySQL database access. Obviously, it works the other way around too, allowing PHP programmers to get some of the basics of Perl...