In this tutorial you will learn about the PHP Introduction and its application with practical example.
PHP stands for “Hypertext Pre-processor”.
PHP is most widely used server-side scripting language on the web, developed by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994, designed for producing dynamic and interactive Web content. PHP originally stands for “Personal Home Page,” but as its features expanded, it became “PHP: Hypertext Processor”, As it processes web pages before they are sent to the browser. PHP page is processed first on the web-server and output creates an HTML which is sent to the web-browser.Although PHP is mostly used for Web-based applications, it can also be used for purpose of command-line scripting – a task usually handled by Perl.
PHP is…
- Interpreted rather than compiled like Java or C.
- An HTML-embedded scripting language.
- A server-side technology; everything happens on the server as opposed to the Web browser’s computer, the client.
- Cross-platform, meaning it can be used on Linux, Windows, Macintosh, etc., making PHP very portable.
- PHP is better, faster, and easier to learn than the alternatives
- An open source scripting language for web programming.
PHP requirements
The following elements represent the minimum requirements to begin working with PHP.
1. PHP enabled Web server.
2. If you are working on your own machine, you will need an SFTP client to transfer your PHP scripts to the Webserver.
3. Web browser (e.g., Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer).
Example:
Our first PHP script “hello.php”
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<html> <head> <title>My first PHP page</title> </head> <body> <?php echo $var = "This is my first PHP page"; ?> </body> </html> |
PHP is very popular if you are looking for a career in the web design/web development industry.
Prerequisites to learn PHP:
Starting with this tutorial it is important that you must have at least basic understanding of HTML, Computer programming, Internet, Database, and MySQL etc.
