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PHP Introduction: What You Should Already Know

The document provides an introduction to PHP, including: - PHP is a server-side scripting language that allows files with a .php extension to contain HTML tags, text, and scripts. - MySQL is a database server that is ideal for both small and large applications and works well with PHP. - The document outlines basic PHP syntax and variables, and provides examples of echoing output and manipulating strings.

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Yash Jariwala
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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28 views

PHP Introduction: What You Should Already Know

The document provides an introduction to PHP, including: - PHP is a server-side scripting language that allows files with a .php extension to contain HTML tags, text, and scripts. - MySQL is a database server that is ideal for both small and large applications and works well with PHP. - The document outlines basic PHP syntax and variables, and provides examples of echoing output and manipulating strings.

Uploaded by

Yash Jariwala
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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PHP Introduction

« Previous Next Chapter »

PHP is a server-side scripting language.

What You Should Already Know


Before you continue you should have a basic understanding of the following:

 HTML/XHTML
 JavaScript

If you want to study these subjects first, find the tutorials on our Home page.

What is PHP?
 PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
 PHP is a server-side scripting language, like ASP
 PHP scripts are executed on the server
 PHP supports many databases (MySQL, Informix, Oracle, Sybase, Solid, PostgreSQL,
Generic ODBC, etc.)
 PHP is an open source software
 PHP is free to download and use

What is a PHP File?


 PHP files can contain text, HTML tags and scripts
 PHP files are returned to the browser as plain HTML 
 PHP files have a file extension of ".php", ".php3", or ".phtml"

What is MySQL?
 MySQL is a database server
 MySQL is ideal for both small and large applications
 MySQL supports standard SQL
 MySQL compiles on a number of platforms
 MySQL is free to download and use

PHP + MySQL
 PHP combined with MySQL are cross-platform (you can develop in Windows and serve
on a Unix platform)

Why PHP?
 PHP runs on different platforms (Windows, Linux, Unix, etc.)
 PHP is compatible with almost all servers used today (Apache, IIS, etc.)
 PHP is FREE to download from the official PHP resource: www.php.net
 PHP is easy to learn and runs efficiently on the server side

Where to Start?
To get access to a web server with PHP support, you can:

 Install Apache (or IIS) on your own server, install PHP, and MySQL
 Or find a web hosting plan with PHP and MySQL support

 PHP Installation
« Previous Next Chapter »

 What do you Need?
 If 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/
 Download Apache Server
 Download Apache for free here: http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi

 PHP Syntax
« Previous Next Chapter »

 PHP code is executed on the server, and the plain HTML result is sent to the browser.

 Basic PHP Syntax


 A PHP scripting block always starts with <?php and ends with ?>. A PHP scripting
block can be placed anywhere in the document.
 On servers with shorthand support enabled you can start a scripting block with <? and
end with ?>.
 For maximum compatibility, we recommend that you use the standard form (<?php)
rather than the shorthand form.

<?php
?>

 A PHP file normally contains HTML tags, just like an HTML file, and some PHP
scripting code.
 Below, we have an example of a simple PHP script which sends the text "Hello World"
to the browser:

<html>
<body>

<?php
echo "Hello World";
?>

</body>
</html>

 Each code line in PHP must end with a semicolon. The semicolon is a separator and is
used to distinguish one set of instructions from another.
 There are two basic statements to output text with PHP: echo and print. In the example
above we have used the echo statement to output the text "Hello World".
 Note: The file must have a .php extension. If the file has a .html extension, the PHP code
will not be executed.

Comments in PHP
 In PHP, we use // to make a single-line comment or /* and */ to make a large comment
block.

<html>
<body>

<?php
//This is a comment

/*
This is
a comment
block
*/
?>

</body>
</html>
PHP Variables
« Previous Next Chapter »

A variable is used to store information.

Variables in PHP
Variables are used for storing values, like text strings, numbers or arrays.

When a variable is declared, it can be used over and over again in your script.

All variables in PHP start with a $ sign symbol.

The correct way of declaring a variable in PHP:

$var_name = value;

New PHP programmers often forget the $ sign at the beginning of the variable. In that case it
will not work.

Let's try creating a variable containing a string, and a variable containing a number:

<?php
$txt="Hello World!";
$x=16;
?>

PHP is a Loosely Typed Language


In PHP, a variable does not need to be declared before adding a value to it.

In the example above, you see that you do not have to tell PHP which data type the variable is.
PHP automatically converts the variable to the correct data type, depending on its value.

In a strongly typed programming language, you have to declare (define) the type and name of the
variable before using it.

In PHP, the variable is declared automatically when you use it.

Naming Rules for Variables


 A variable name must start with a letter or an underscore "_"
 A variable name can only contain alpha-numeric characters and underscores (a-z, A-Z, 0-
9, and _ )
 A variable name should not contain spaces. If a variable name is more than one word, it
should be separated with an underscore ($my_string), or with capitalization ($myString)
PHP String Variables
« Previous Next Chapter »

 A string variable is used to store and manipulate text.

 String Variables in PHP


 String variables are used for values that contains characters.
 In this chapter we are going to look at the most common functions and operators used to
manipulate strings in PHP.
 After we create a string we can manipulate it. A string can be used directly in a function
or it can be stored in a variable.
 Below, the PHP script assigns the text "Hello World" to a string variable called $txt:

<?php
$txt="Hello World";
echo $txt;
?>

 The output of the code above will be:

Hello World

 Now, lets try to use some different functions and operators to manipulate the string.

The Concatenation Operator


 There is only one string operator in PHP.
 The concatenation operator (.)  is used to put two string values together.
 To concatenate two string variables together, use the concatenation operator:

<?php
$txt1="Hello World!";
$txt2="What a nice day!";
echo $txt1 . " " . $txt2;
?>

 The output of the code above will be:

Hello World! What a nice day!

 If we look at the code above you see that we used the concatenation operator two times.
This is because we had to insert a third string (a space character), to separate the two
strings.

The strlen() function


 The strlen() function is used to return the length of a string.
 Let's find the length of a string:

<?php
echo strlen("Hello world!");
?>

 The output of the code above will be:

12

 The length of a string is often used in loops or other functions, when it is important to
know when the string ends. (i.e. in a loop, we would want to stop the loop after the last
character in the string).

The strpos() function


 The strpos() function is used to search for character within a string.
 If a match is found, this function will return the position of the first match. If no match is
found, it will return FALSE.
 Let's see if we can find the string "world" in our string:

<?php
echo strpos("Hello world!","world");
?>

 The output of the code above will be:

6
 The position of the string "world" in our string is position 6. The reason that it is 6 (and
not 7), is that the first position in the string is 0, and not 1.

PHP String Introduction


 The string functions allow you to manipulate strings.

Installation
 The string functions are part of the PHP core. There is no installation needed to use these
functions.

PHP String Functions


 PHP: indicates the earliest version of PHP that supports the function.

Function Description PH
P
addcslashes() Returns a string with backslashes in front of the 4
specified characters
addslashes() Returns a string with backslashes in front of 3
predefined characters
bin2hex() Converts a string of ASCII characters to hexadecimal 3
values
chop() Alias of rtrim() 3
chr() Returns a character from a specified ASCII value 3
chunk_split() Splits a string into a series of smaller parts 3
convert_cyr_string() Converts a string from one Cyrillic character-set to 3
another
convert_uudecode() Decodes a uuencoded string 5
convert_uuencode() Encodes a string using the uuencode algorithm 5
count_chars() Returns how many times an ASCII character occurs 4
within a string and returns the information
crc32() Calculates a 32-bit CRC for a string 4
crypt() One-way string encryption (hashing) 3
echo() Outputs strings 3
explode() Breaks a string into an array 3
fprintf() Writes a formatted string to a specified output stream 5
get_html_translation_table() Returns the translation table used by 4
htmlspecialchars() and htmlentities()
hebrev() Converts Hebrew text to visual text 3
hebrevc() Converts Hebrew text to visual text and new lines (\n) 3
into <br />
html_entity_decode() Converts HTML entities to characters 4
htmlentities() Converts characters to HTML entities 3
htmlspecialchars_decode() Converts some predefined HTML entities to 5
characters
htmlspecialchars() Converts some predefined characters to HTML 3
entities
implode() Returns a string from the elements of an array 3
join() Alias of implode() 3
levenshtein() Returns the Levenshtein distance between two strings 3
localeconv() Returns locale numeric and monetary formatting 4
information
ltrim() Strips whitespace from the left side of a string 3
md5() Calculates the MD5 hash of a string 3
md5_file() Calculates the MD5 hash of a file 4
metaphone() Calculates the metaphone key of a string 4
money_format() Returns a string formatted as a currency string 4
nl_langinfo() Returns specific local information 4
nl2br() Inserts HTML line breaks in front of each newline in a 3
string
number_format() Formats a number with grouped thousands 3
ord() Returns the ASCII value of the first character of a 3
string
parse_str() Parses a query string into variables 3
print() Outputs a string 3
printf() Outputs a formatted string 3
quoted_printable_decode() Decodes a quoted-printable string 3
quotemeta() Quotes meta characters 3
rtrim() Strips whitespace from the right side of a string 3
setlocale() Sets locale information 3
sha1() Calculates the SHA-1 hash of a string 4
sha1_file() Calculates the SHA-1 hash of a file 4
similar_text() Calculates the similarity between two strings 3
soundex() Calculates the soundex key of a string 3
sprintf() Writes a formatted string to a variable 3
sscanf() Parses input from a string according to a format 4
str_ireplace() Replaces some characters in a string (case-insensitive) 5
str_pad() Pads a string to a new length 4
str_repeat() Repeats a string a specified number of times 4
str_replace() Replaces some characters in a string (case-sensitive) 3
str_rot13() Performs the ROT13 encoding on a string 4
str_shuffle() Randomly shuffles all characters in a string 4
str_split() Splits a string into an array 5
str_word_count() Count the number of words in a string 4
strcasecmp() Compares two strings (case-insensitive) 3
strchr() Finds the first occurrence of a string inside another 3
string (alias of strstr())
strcmp() Compares two strings (case-sensitive) 3
strcoll() Locale based string comparison 4
strcspn() Returns the number of characters found in a string 3
before any part of some specified characters are found
strip_tags() Strips HTML and PHP tags from a string 3
stripcslashes() Unquotes a string quoted with addcslashes() 4
stripslashes() Unquotes a string quoted with addslashes() 3
stripos() Returns the position of the first occurrence of a string 5
inside another string (case-insensitive)
stristr() Finds the first occurrence of a string inside another 3
string (case-insensitive)
strlen() Returns the length of a string 3
strnatcasecmp() Compares two strings using a "natural order" 4
algorithm (case-insensitive)
strnatcmp() Compares two strings using a "natural order" 4
algorithm (case-sensitive)
strncasecmp() String comparison of the first n characters (case- 4
insensitive)
strncmp() String comparison of the first n characters (case- 4
sensitive)
strpbrk() Searches a string for any of a set of characters 5
strpos() Returns the position of the first occurrence of a string 3
inside another string (case-sensitive)
strrchr() Finds the last occurrence of a string inside another 3
string
strrev() Reverses a string 3
strripos() Finds the position of the last occurrence of a string 5
inside another string (case-insensitive)
strrpos() Finds the position of the last occurrence of a string 3
inside another string (case-sensitive)
strspn() Returns the number of characters found in a string that 3
contains only characters from a specified charlist
strstr() Finds the first occurrence of a string inside another 3
string (case-sensitive)
strtok() Splits a string into smaller strings 3
strtolower() Converts a string to lowercase letters 3
strtoupper() Converts a string to uppercase letters 3
strtr() Translates certain characters in a string 3
substr() Returns a part of a string 3
substr_compare() Compares two strings from a specified start position 5
(binary safe and optionally case-sensitive)
substr_count() Counts the number of times a substring occurs in a 4
string
substr_replace() Replaces a part of a string with another string 4
trim() Strips whitespace from both sides of a string 3
ucfirst() Converts the first character of a string to uppercase 3
ucwords() Converts the first character of each word in a string to 3
uppercase
vfprintf() Writes a formatted string to a specified output stream 5
vprintf() Outputs a formatted string 4
vsprintf() Writes a formatted string to a variable 4
wordwrap() Wraps a string to a given number of characters 4

PHP String Constants


PHP: indicates the earliest version of PHP that supports the constant.

PH
Constant Description
P
CRYPT_SALT_LENGTH Contains the length of the default encryption method  
for the
system. For standard DES encryption, the length is 2
CRYPT_STD_DES Set to 1 if the standard DES-based encryption with a 2  
character salt is supported, 0 otherwise
CRYPT_EXT_DES Set to 1 if the extended DES-based encryption with a  
9 character salt is supported, 0 otherwise
CRYPT_MD5 Set to 1 if the MD5 encryption with a 12 character salt  
starting with $1$ is supported, 0 otherwise
CRYPT_BLOWFISH Set to 1 if the Blowfish encryption with a 16 character  
salt starting with $2$ or $2a$ is supported, 0
otherwise0
HTML_SPECIALCHARS    
HTML_ENTITIES    
ENT_COMPAT    
ENT_QUOTES    
ENT_NOQUOTES    
CHAR_MAX    
LC_CTYPE    
LC_NUMERIC    
LC_TIME    
LC_COLLATE    
LC_MONETARY    
LC_ALL    
LC_MESSAGES    
STR_PAD_LEFT    
STR_PAD_RIGHT    
STR_PAD_BOTH    

PHP Operators
« Previous Next Chapter »

Operators are used to operate on values.

PHP Operators
This section lists the different operators used in PHP.

Arithmetic Operators

Operator Description Example Result


+ Addition x=2 4
x+2
- Subtraction x=2 3
5-x
* Multiplication x=4 20
x*5
/ Division 15/5 3
5/2 2.5
% Modulus (division remainder) 5%2 1
10%8 2
10%2 0
++ Increment x=5 x=6
x++
-- Decrement x=5 x=4
x--

Assignment Operators

Operator Example Is The Same As


= x=y x=y
+= x+=y x=x+y
-= x-=y x=x-y
*= x*=y x=x*y
/= x/=y x=x/y
.= x.=y x=x.y
%= x%=y x=x%y

Comparison Operators

Operator Description Example


== is equal to 5==8 returns false
!= is not equal 5!=8 returns true
<> is not equal 5<>8 returns true
> is greater than 5>8 returns false
< is less than 5<8 returns true
>= is greater than or equal to 5>=8 returns false
<= is less than or equal to 5<=8 returns true

Logical Operators

Operator Description Example


&& and x=6
y=3

(x < 10 && y > 1) returns true


|| or x=6
y=3

(x==5 || y==5) returns false


! not x=6
y=3
!(x==y) returns true

PHP If...Else Statements


« Previous Next Chapter »

Conditional statements are used to perform different actions based on different conditions.

Conditional Statements
Very often when you write code, you want to perform different actions for different decisions.

You can use conditional statements in your code to do this.

In PHP we have the following conditional statements:

 if statement - use this statement to execute some code only if a specified condition is true
 if...else statement - use this statement to execute some code if a condition is true and another
code if the condition is false
 if...elseif....else statement - use this statement to select one of several blocks of code to be
executed
 switch statement - use this statement to select one of many blocks of code to be executed
The if Statement
Use the if statement to execute some code only if a specified condition is true.

Syntax
if (condition) code to be executed if condition is true;

The following example will output "Have a nice weekend!" if the current day is Friday:

<html>
<body>

<?php
$d=date("D");
if ($d=="Fri") echo "Have a nice weekend!";
?>

</body>
</html>

Notice that there is no ..else.. in this syntax. The code is executed only if the specified condition
is true.

The if...else Statement


Use the if....else statement to execute some code if a condition is true and another code if a
condition is false.

Syntax
if (condition)
  code to be executed if condition is true;
else
  code to be executed if condition is false;

Example

The following example will output "Have a nice weekend!" if the current day is Friday,
otherwise it will output "Have a nice day!":

<html>
<body>

<?php
$d=date("D");
if ($d=="Fri")
  echo "Have a nice weekend!";
else
  echo "Have a nice day!";
?>

</body>
</html>

If more than one line should be executed if a condition is true/false, the lines should be enclosed
within curly braces:

<html>
<body>

<?php
$d=date("D");
if ($d=="Fri")
  {
  echo "Hello!<br />";
  echo "Have a nice weekend!";
  echo "See you on Monday!";
  }
?>

</body>
</html>

The if...elseif....else Statement


Use the if....elseif...else statement to select one of several blocks of code to be executed.

Syntax
if (condition)
  code to be executed if condition is true;
elseif (condition)
  code to be executed if condition is true;
else
  code to be executed if condition is false;

Example

The following example will output "Have a nice weekend!" if the current day is Friday, and
"Have a nice Sunday!" if the current day is Sunday. Otherwise it will output "Have a nice day!":

<html>
<body>

<?php
$d=date("D");
if ($d=="Fri")
  echo "Have a nice weekend!";
elseif ($d=="Sun")
  echo "Have a nice Sunday!";
else
  echo "Have a nice day!";
?>
</body>
</html>

PHP Switch Statement


« Previous Next Chapter »

Conditional statements are used to perform different actions based on different conditions.

The PHP Switch Statement


Use the switch statement to select one of many blocks of code to be executed.

Syntax
switch (n)
{
case label1:
  code to be executed if n=label1;
  break;
case label2:
  code to be executed if n=label2;
  break;
default:
  code to be executed if n is different from both label1 and label2;
}

This is how it works: First we have a single expression n (most often a variable), that is
evaluated once. The value of the expression is then compared with the values for each case in the
structure. If there is a match, the block of code associated with that case is executed. Use break
to prevent the code from running into the next case automatically. The default statement is used
if no match is found.

Example
<html>
<body>

<?php
switch ($x)
{
case 1:
  echo "Number 1";
  break;
case 2:
  echo "Number 2";
  break;
case 3:
  echo "Number 3";
  break;
default:
  echo "No number between 1 and 3";
}
?>

</body>
</html>

PHP Arrays
« Previous Next Chapter »

An array stores multiple values in one single variable.

What is an Array?
A variable is a storage area holding a number or text. The problem is, a variable will hold only
one value.
An array is a special variable, which can store multiple values in one single variable.

If you have a list of items (a list of car names, for example), storing the cars in single variables
could look like this:

$cars1="Saab";
$cars2="Volvo";
$cars3="BMW";

However, what if you want to loop through the cars and find a specific one? And what if you had
not 3 cars, but 300?

The best solution here is to use an array!

An array can hold all your variable values under a single name. And you can access the values
by referring to the array name.

Each element in the array has its own index so that it can be easily accessed.

In PHP, there are three kind of arrays:

 Numeric array - An array with a numeric index


 Associative array - An array where each ID key is associated with a value
 Multidimensional array - An array containing one or more arrays

Numeric Arrays
A numeric array stores each array element with a numeric index.

There are two methods to create a numeric array.

1. In the following example the index are automatically assigned (the index starts at 0):

$cars=array("Saab","Volvo","BMW","Toyota");

2. In the following example we assign the index manually:

$cars[0]="Saab";
$cars[1]="Volvo";
$cars[2]="BMW";
$cars[3]="Toyota";
Example

In the following example you access the variable values by referring to the array name and
index:

<?php
$cars[0]="Saab";
$cars[1]="Volvo";
$cars[2]="BMW";
$cars[3]="Toyota";
echo $cars[0] . " and " . $cars[1] . " are Swedish cars.";
?>

The code above will output:

Saab and Volvo are Swedish cars.

Associative Arrays
An associative array, each ID key is associated with a value.

When storing data about specific named values, a numerical array is not always the best way to
do it.

With associative arrays we can use the values as keys and assign values to them.

Example 1

In this example we use an array to assign ages to the different persons:

$ages = array("Peter"=>32, "Quagmire"=>30, "Joe"=>34);

Example 2

This example is the same as example 1, but shows a different way of creating the array:

$ages['Peter'] = "32";
$ages['Quagmire'] = "30";
$ages['Joe'] = "34";

The ID keys can be used in a script:


<?php
$ages['Peter'] = "32";
$ages['Quagmire'] = "30";
$ages['Joe'] = "34";

echo "Peter is " . $ages['Peter'] . " years old.";


?>

The code above will output:

Peter is 32 years old.

Multidimensional Arrays
In a multidimensional array, each element in the main array can also be an array. And each
element in the sub-array can be an array, and so on.

Example

In this example we create a multidimensional array, with automatically assigned ID keys:

$families = array
  (
  "Griffin"=>array
  (
  "Peter",
  "Lois",
  "Megan"
  ),
  "Quagmire"=>array
  (
  "Glenn"
  ),
  "Brown"=>array
  (
  "Cleveland",
  "Loretta",
  "Junior"
  )
  );

The array above would look like this if written to the output:

Array
(
[Griffin] => Array
  (
  [0] => Peter
  [1] => Lois
  [2] => Megan
  )
[Quagmire] => Array
  (
  [0] => Glenn
  )
[Brown] => Array
  (
  [0] => Cleveland
  [1] => Loretta
  [2] => Junior
  )
)

Example 2

Lets try displaying a single value from the array above:

echo "Is " . $families['Griffin'][2] .


" a part of the Griffin family?";

The code above will output:

Is Megan a part of the Griffin family?

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