How can PHP beginners effectively learn to manipulate URLs and images?

Beginners can effectively learn to manipulate URLs and images in PHP by practicing with built-in functions such as `parse_url()` for URLs and `imagecreatefromjpeg()` for images. They can also explore libraries like GD or Imagick for more advanced image manipulation tasks. Additionally, utilizing online resources, tutorials, and experimenting with sample code can help beginners grasp the concepts more effectively.

// Example of manipulating a URL using parse_url()
$url = "https://www.example.com/path/to/page.php?query=123";
$parsed_url = parse_url($url);
echo "Scheme: " . $parsed_url['scheme'] . "\n";
echo "Host: " . $parsed_url['host'] . "\n";
echo "Path: " . $parsed_url['path'] . "\n";
echo "Query: " . $parsed_url['query'] . "\n";

// Example of manipulating an image using imagecreatefromjpeg()
$image_path = "image.jpg";
$image = imagecreatefromjpeg($image_path);
$new_image = imagescale($image, 200, 150);
imagejpeg($new_image, "new_image.jpg");
imagedestroy($image);
imagedestroy($new_image);