PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor)
Introduction
PHP is a powerful tool for making dynamic and interactive Web pages. PHP is the widely-used, free, and efficient alternative to competitors such as Microsoft's ASP.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 easy to learn and runs efficiently on the server side.