Learn PHP Programming in 7Days: Ultimate PHP Crash Course For Beginners

Learn PHP Programming in 7Days

Ultimate PHP Crash Course For Beginners

By Austin Myers

Copyright 2014 Austin Myers

Smashwords Edition

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: An Introduction To PHP Programming

Chapter 2: PHP Installation Guide

Chapter 3: Creating Your First PHP File

Chapter 4: Syntax in PHP and How To Deals With This?

Chapter 5: All about Flow Control in PHP

Chapter 6: Using Arrays in PHP

Chapter 7: Using Loops in PHP

Chapter 8: Functions in PHP To Perform Actions

Chapter 9: Object-Oriented Programming With PHP

Chapter 10: Where To Go Beyond PHP?

Chapter 1

An Introduction To PHP Programming

Why To Learn PHP?

You may be surprised to know that PHP is used by over 80% of all websites? PHP is also used by websites such as Facebook, YouTube and Amazon. Rasmus Lerdorf originally created PHP in 1994 in an effort to keep track of the number of visitors who viewed his online resume. PHP was not intended as a programming language, but as what could be considered as an early version of an analytic tool. Lerdorf named the scripts Personal Home Page Tools, which would later be abbreviated as PHP Tools. Lerdorf made the scripts public in 1995 after rewriting them and adding more functionality, such as the possibility to create a guest book so that visitors could leave a message on his website.

A new version of the code was released in April 1996. This new generation featured an HTML-embedded syntax, automatic interpretation of form variables, and built-in support for a number of databases. PHP has successfully evolved from a collection of web page construction tools into a programming language. This early version of PHP was used by over 60,000 websites in 1998, which represented about 1% of the Internet at the time.

The third generation of PHP was announced in June 1998. The language was renamed PHP, an acronym that stands for Hypertext Preprocessor. PHP 3.0 features a more consistent syntax, an improved interface, as well as compatibility with a greater number of databases. PHP 3.0 attracted many developers thanks to its potential for growth. PHP 3.0 was installed on over 10% of Internet servers in 1998.

PHP is currently in its sixth generation and a seventh generation has been announced. Developers are still working on improving the syntax for the new generation. PHP has come a long way, and is now used by over 240 million websites and 2.1 million web servers. The PHP Group is now in charge of performing tests, creating documentation, and improving the language.

PHP became so popular because it is easy for beginners to use, and offers endless possibilities to more advanced programmers. It is possible to start writing scripts after spending only a few hours studying