What is PHP

PHP - What is it?

Taken directly from PHP's home, PHP.net, "PHP is an HTML-embedded scripting language. Much of its syntax is borrowed from C, Java and Perl with a couple of unique PHP-specific features thrown in. The goal of the language is to allow web developers to write dynamically generated pages quickly."

This is generally a good definition of PHP. However, it does contain a lot of terms you may not be used to. Another way to think of PHP is a powerful, behind the scenes scripting language that your visitors won't see!

When someone visits your PHP webpage

, your web server processes the PHP code. It then sees which parts it needs to show to visitors(content and pictures) and hides the other stuff(file operations, math calculations, etc.) then translates your PHP into HTML. After the translation into HTML, it sends the webpage to your visitor's web browser.

PHP - What's it do?

It is also helpful to think of PHP in terms of what it can do for you. PHP will allow you to:

• Reduce the time to create large websites.
  
• Create a customized user experience for visitors based on information that you have gathered from them.
  
• Open up thousands of possibilities for online tools.
  
• Allow creation of shopping carts for e-commerce websites.
  

What You Should Know

Before starting this tutorial it is important that you have a basic understanding and experience in the following:

• HTML - Know the syntax and especially HTML Forms.
  
• Basic programming knowledge - This isn't required, but if you have any traditional programming experience it will make learning PHP a great deal easier.

How PHP Works?

PHP sits between your browser and the web server. When you type in the URL of a PHP website in your browser, your browser sends out a request to the web server.
The web server then calls the PHP script on that page. The PHP module executes the script, which then sends out the result in the form of HTML back to your browser, which you see on the screen. Here is a basic php diagram which illustrate the process.

PHP Process Diagram

What do you Need?

f your server supports PHP you don't need to do anything.

Just create some .php files in your web directory, and the server will parse them for you. Because it is free, most web hosts offer PHP support.

However, if your server does not support PHP, you must install PHP.


Here is a link to a good tutorial from PHP.net on how to install PHP5: http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.php

Download PHP

Download PHP for free here: http://www.php.net/downloads.php

Download MySQL Database

Download MySQL for free here: http://www.mysql.com/downloads/index.html

Download Apache Server

Download Apache for free here: http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi