PHP Programming Fundamentals - Introduction to PHP

Welcome to PHPBash | Helping You to Become an Expert in PHP Programming. In this PHP Tutorial for beginners and professionals, I will provides in-depth knowledge of Introduction of PHP scripting language.

PHP Programming Fundamentals - Introduction to PHP

This PHP tutorial covers all the topics of PHP Introduction such as

1. What is PHP?

2. Basic Uses of PHP

3. Characteristics of PHP

4. Prerequisite to Start with PHP

5. What PHP File can contain?

6. Syntax of PHP Code

7. What you will need to Work with PHP?

Let's start PHP tutorial with basic question, What is PHP?

What is PHP?

PHP Stands for PHP: hypertext Preprocessor. PHP is Open source general-purpose High Level object-oriented Scripting Language. It is used for web application development and can also be embedded into hypertext markup language (HTML). Many Web site like Yahoo, Wikipedia, Facebook, Tumblr, Wordpress, MailChimp, Flickr. etc, are developed using PHP. PHP is very popular and widely used and the reason is that,PHP is simple to learn and use.

Here are a handful of great things you should consider PHP:

PHP is an interpreted language, therefore it do not need compiler.
To run and execute PHP code, we want a web Server like Apache, IIS etc. on that PHP should be put in and configured.
PHP is a Server side Scripting Language, which means that PHP is executed on the Server and therefore the Output is sent back to the client program in plain hypertext markup language.
PHP is open source and free. so you do not have to pay for its use even for commercial projects.
PHP is an object-oriented language.

Rasmus Lerdorf

It was originally created by programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994. PHP originally stood for personal Home Page, however it currently stands for the recursive initialism PHP: hypertext Preprocessor. PHP 7.4.9 is the latest version of PHP, which was released on 06 Aug 2020

Basic uses PHP?

PHP is a server side scripting language that's embedded in hypertext markup language. it is used to manage Dynamic Content, File Handling, Handling Cookies, Collect and process form data, database Operations,Session Handling etc. Apart from the above, There are 3 main areas where PHP scripts are used.

1. Server-side scripting- this is often the most traditional and main target field for PHP. you need 3 things to make this work: the PHP parser (CGI or server module), a web server like Apache, IIS etc and an internet browser.

2. Command line scripting- you'll be able to create a PHP script to run it with none server or browser. you simply want the PHP parser to use it this manner. it's accessible in php directory having name php.exe

3. Writing desktop applications- PHP is perhaps not the best possible language to make a desktop application with a graphical user interface, however if you know PHP very well, and would really like to use some advanced PHP features in your client-side applications you'll additionally use PHP-GTK to write down such programs.

Characteristics of PHP

Five important characteristics make PHP's practical nature possible −

Simplicity
Efficiency
Security
Flexibility
Familiarity

PHP Advantages

Open Source so freely available and can be customized as per requirements. You can freely download, install and start creating web applications using it.
Easy and Familiar Syntax like C,C++.
PHP code can be Embedded in HTML.
PHP is Platform Independent so applications developed with PHP can be Executed on different platforms like WINDOWS, MAC, LINUX & UNIX
PHP has Support for all leading Database Vendors including MySQL, ODBC, Oracle, MSSQL etc.
PHP having extremely good Support for Web servers like Apache, Netscape, Microsoft IIS, etc.
PHP has multiple layers of security to prevent threads and malicious attacks. So secure web applications can be developed.
High Performance as compare to other scripting languages
All Major Content Management Systems(CMS) like Joomla, Drupal and so on are created in PHP and can be used for creation of your web site.
With PHP, you can make static and dynamic website pages, perform file handling, send emails, access and modify cookies,handle sessions, and nearly everything else that you should execute in your web application.
PHP is fast when compared with other scripting languages like JSP and ASP.

Prerequisite to Start with PHP

Before Starting PHP, you should be Familiar with the fundamentals of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

HTML- HTML is Hypertext Markup Language and is used to design web page.
CSS- CSS is Cascading Style Sheet which helps to make the webpage content more effective and attractive. It is used to manage the style of webpage.
JavaScript- JavaScript is one of the widely used Client Side Scripting Language and used to design an interactive website which can response to user actions.

What PHP File can contain?

PHP files may contain plain text, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP code itself. PHP files can be saved with extension ".php" in the root directory of Web Server.

Syntax of PHP Code

The following program is written in PHP code embedded in an HTML document:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Welcome to PHPBash!!!</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <?php echo '<p>Welcome to PHPBash!!!</p>'; ?>
  </body>
</html>

In case of above code, It will produce following result −

Welcome to PHPBash!!!

If you observe HTML code of the above output, you will find that, there is no PHP code, because all PHP code written in page is parsed by PHP parser at web server and it returns results in normal HTML language which can be interpreted by browser.

What you will need to Work with PHP?

To work with PHP, for developing and running PHP Web pages or web applications, you need three important components to be installed and configured on your computer system. The computer system may have Operating System Like Windows, Linux or any other.

The Three Components are:

1. Web Server

2. Database Server

3. PHP Parser/ PHP Software

Now We will see them one by one in detail.

1. Web Server − As described earlier, PHP has Support for all Major and popular Web Server software, including Apache Software Foundation's Apache Web Server, Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS) etc. PHP mostly configured with freely available Apache Server.

You can Download Apache from its official website − https://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi

2. Database − As described earlier, PHP has Support for all Major and popular database software, including Mysql, MSSQL Server, Oracle, MongoDb,Sybase etc. But most of the times, PHP is commonly used is open source and popular MySQL database.

You can Download MySQL for free here − https://www.mysql.com/downloads/

3. PHP Parser − Now, the most important component, PHP Parser. so for interpretation of PHP script, We need to configure web server with PHP parser. In case of apache server, PHP parser can be added as Module of Apache server. So whenever we will send any PHP Script to Apache Server, The PHP Parser will parse our Script and generate HTML output which can be interpreted/displayed by our web browser. The name of PHP Parser is PHP.exe and usually located in PHP directory.

You can Download PHP for free here − https://www.php.net/downloads

I hope this PHP tutorial might have given a much better idea about Introduction to PHP. If you have any doubt, Please let me know in Comment Section. Please share it with your friends.

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