PHP Overview

Margaret H.
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PHP (a recursive acronym for PHP Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open-source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. 

It is a server-side scripting language designed to generate dynamic web pages and interact with databases, making it ideal for building dynamic websites, web applications, and web services.

While PHP is technically a general-purpose programming language, its initial and most typical application is for use in creating dynamic websites.

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PHP Explained

  • PHP offers a vast array of features and functionalities, including support for various databases, extensive libraries and frameworks, excellent documentation, and a large and active community
    • Open Source
      • PHP is an open-source programming language, meaning its source code is freely available, allowing developers to modify, customize, and contribute to its ongoing development, fostering collaboration, innovation, and community-driven improvements
    • Ease of use and easy to learn
      • PHP is known for its ease of use, thanks to its straightforward syntax, extensive documentation, and a vast collection of built-in functions and libraries that simplify common tasks and make it accessible to developers of all skill levels
    • Embedding into HTML
      • PHP code can be embedded directly within HTML, allowing for seamless integration of server-side logic and dynamic content
  • Its versatility, ease of use, and wide adoption have made PHP a leading choice for developers in creating dynamic and interactive web experiences

Embed to HTML

  • As mentioned, PHP is able to be embedded directly into HTML, a point that is considered so important that it is in the first line of PHP's documentation
  • This is different from languages such as C or Perl where one would need to write specific code to output results to HTML
  • Let's take a look at an example from the PHP group
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Example</title>
    </head>
    <body>

        <?php
            echo "Hi, I'm a PHP script!";
        ?>

    </body>
</html>
  • When the server software (in this case, Apache) processes this page, it sees the <?php and switches into PHP Mode
  • It will output any results as HTML, and when it reaches the ending ?> it will change back to HTML Mode
  • As a result of the way that PHP is handled, if someone were to pull up the page source for the above page, they would see the following
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
    "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Example</title>
    </head>
    <body>

        Hi, I'm a PHP script!

    </body>
</html>
  • As you can see, it just looks like HTML code

PHP-Driven Software Examples

  • Some of the commonly used PHP software includes content management systems (CMS), which provide a user-friendly interface for creating and managing websites, e-commerce platforms for building online stores, and frameworks that offer powerful tools and libraries for developing robust web applications
  • Additionally, PHP has popular software for forum management (phpBB, vBulletin), customer relationship management (SugarCRM), and project management (Redmine, ProjectPier), among many others
    • CMS
      • WordPress
      • Joomla
      • Drupal
    • E-commerce
      • PrestaShop
      • Magento
      • WooCommerce
    • Frameworks
      • Laravel
      • Symfony
      • CodeIgniter

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