Scribd
Upload
1 views2 pages

1-Introduction To PHP

PHP is a server-side, general-purpose scripting language primarily used for web development, created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994. It is cross-platform, compatible with major operating systems and web servers, and supports various databases. PHP's main applications include server-side scripting for dynamic websites and command-line scripting for administrative tasks.

Uploaded by

harleensingh985
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
1 views2 pages

1-Introduction To PHP

PHP is a server-side, general-purpose scripting language primarily used for web development, created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994. It is cross-platform, compatible with major operating systems and web servers, and supports various databases. PHP's main applications include server-side scripting for dynamic websites and command-line scripting for administrative tasks.

Uploaded by

harleensingh985
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

Introduction to PHP

PHP is a server-side and general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited


for web development.

PHP originally stood for Personal Home Page. However, now, it stands
for Hypertext Pre-processor. It is a recursive acronym because the first word itself is
also an acronym.

PHP was created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994. It is currently maintained by the PHP
Development Team.

PHP is a server-side language

When you open a website on your web browser, for example,


https://www.phptutorial.net

The web browser sends an HTTP request to a web server where phptutorial.net locates.
The web server receives the request and responds with an HTML document.

In this example, the web browser is a client while the web server is the server. The
client requests for a page, and the server serves the request.

PHP runs on the web server, processes the request, and returns the HTML document.

PHP is a general-purpose language

When it comes to the purpose of the programming languages, there are two main types:
domain-specific and general-purpose languages.

The domain-specific languages are used within specific application domains. For
example, SQL is a domain-specific language. It is used mainly for querying data from
relational databases. And SQL cannot be used for other purposes.

On the other hand, PHP is a general-purpose language because PHP can develop
various applications.

PHP is a cross-platform language

PHP can run on all major operating systems, including Linux, Windows, and macOS.

You can use PHP with all leading web servers such as Nginx, OpenBSD, and Apache.
Some cloud environments also support PHP like Microsoft Azure and Amazon AWS.

PHP is quite flexible. It’s not just limited to processing HTML. PHP has built-in
support for generating PDF, GIF, JPEG, and PNG images.

One notable feature of PHP is that it supports many databases, including MySQL,
PostgreSQL, MS SQL, db2, Oracle Database, and MongoDB.

What can PHP do


PHP has two main applications:

• Server-side scripting – PHP is well-suited for developing dynamic websites and


web applications.
• Command-line scripting – like Python and Perl, you can run PHP script from
the command line to perform administrative tasks like sending emails and
generating PDF files.

The tutorials on this website mainly focus on server-side scripting.

How PHP Works

The following illustrates how PHP works:

How PHP works:

• First, the web browser sends an HTTP request to the web server, e.g., index.php.
• Second, the PHP pre-processor that locates on the web server processes PHP
code to generate the HTML document.
• Third, the web server sends the HTML document back to the web browser.

Advantages of PHP

Since PHP is designed for the web in the first place, it brings many advantages to web
development:

• Simple – PHP is quite easy to learn and get started.


• Fast – PHP websites typically run very fast.
• Stable – PHP is stable since it has been in existence for a long time.
• Open-source and free – PHP is open source and free. It means that you don’t
have to pay a license fee to use PHP to develop software products.
• Community support – PHP has an active online community that helps you
whenever you face an issue.

You might also like