Things You Didn’t Know About PHP

Is it easy to develop a web application? YES! Here’s PHP to save the developers from a huge codebase. Within a few minutes, you will be getting introduced to Things You Didn't Know About PHP.

Getting Introduced To PHP

PHP stands for ‘Hypertext Preprocessor.’ Earlier, it stood for ‘Personal Home Page.’ It is:

• Open-source.
• Imperative.
• Server-side scripting language.
• Object-oriented, procedural.
• Widely-used.
• Reflective.
• General-purpose.
• An interpreted language.
• Cross-platform.
• Functional.
• Mainly used for web development.
• Used to develop static as well as dynamic web pages.
• Can be embedded in HTML and vice-versa.

History

It was designed by Rasmus Lerdorf and developed by Zend Technologies. It was released in June 1995. It is primarily implemented using C language while some components have been taken from C++. It is released under the PHP license and its standard interpreter is powered by Zend Engine.

Some Uses Of PHP

Powers Of PHP

1. PHP scripts are mainly used for:

Writing desktop applications. This will be fruitful if the programmer knows the advanced features of PHP well.

Server-side scripting. This can be done using a PHP parser, a web server(to view the PHP page), and a web browser(to access the output of the PHP program).

Command-line scripting. This can be achieved through PHP parsing.

2. With PHP, we can choose:

• The web server.
• The Operating System.
• Object-Oriented Programming(OOP), Procedural Programming, Or a mixture of both.

3. It can be used on all major Operating Systems(OS) like the Unix variants, Linux, RISC OS, macOS, Windows.

4. PHP runs faster than ASP. ASP uses Component Object Model(COM) architecture and an overhead server whereas, PHP has its own memory space.

5. It supports many current web servers.

6. It can output:

• Images.
• PDF files.
• HTML
• Any text such as XML and XHTML.
• Flash movies.

7. It supports a wide range of databases(such as MariaDB, MongoDB, MySQL, SQLite, Oracle, Db2, and PostgreSQL).

8. Instantiation of Java objects is supported. PHP also uses them as PHP objects transparently.

9. It supports text processing.

10. PHP uses various protocols(such as IMAP, POP3, HTTP, LDAP, etc.) to talk to other services.

Working Of PHP

• A user interacts with the form through the User Interface(UI). HTML, Bootstrap, JavaScript, CSS, and JQuery are used to enhance the UI.
• The data relating to every user is stored in the database.
• PHP acts as a medium between the user(the HTML file) and the database.
• PHP has two responsibilities now:
• To send the user’s data to the database.
• To fetch the data from the database and make it user-readable.

• The user interacts through an HTML file with the extension ‘.html.’
• When a user enters all his data in the form and submits it, the required information is taken by the PHP code. PHP code is written in a PHP file with the ‘.php’ extension.
• The job of this PHP code is to store this data in the required format into the database.
• Thus, changes to the database are done through PHP.
• Similarly, When a user wants to retrieve some data from the database(such as checking his profile, getting the bills, etc.), PHP code fetches the data related to a particular user and shows it to the user through an HTML form.

What if the HTML file is absent?

If a PHP file is accessed in the absence of an HTML file, then only the PHP code will be displayed on the web page. Users cannot interact with the form or database.

What if the PHP file is absent?

Then the user can only interact with the UI. He can only enter his data in the input fields but cannot submit the form or get anything back from the database. Connection to the database will be lost. Thus, the data can neither be stored nor retrieved.

What if CSS, Bootstrap, Javascript, or JQuery code is absent?

This will only affect the beauty of the UI but won’t interfere with the database connection. The user will still be able to store and retrieve data to and from the database through a simple HTML form.

PHP Environmental Setup

Following things are needed for the environmental setup of PHP:

a. The web server(LAMP, MAMP, XAMPP, WAMP, WPN-XM, LEMP, AMPPS, EasyPHP, Final Words are some of the web servers for PHP).

b. An editor.

c. Database(such as Oracle and MySQL).

Also Read: XAMPP SERVER: ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW

 

Some Popular PHP Frameworks

PHP Syntax

<?php

…

PHP code;

…

?>

The PHP code should always be written between <?php and ?>

Every statement in PHP ends with a semicolon(;).

Writing HTML Code In PHP

<?php

…

echo “<table>”;

echo “<tr>”;

echo “<td>Hello” .$name.“</td>”; //Look at this statement carefully.

echo “</tr>”;

echo “</table>”;

         …

?>

Writing PHP Code In HTML

<html>

<title>First Page</title>

<body>

    <table>

        <tr>

             <td><?php echo $name; ?></td> <!--Look at this statement carefully--

        </tr>

    </table>

</body>

</html>

Executing the PHP code

• If we execute a ‘.php’ file that has no HTML code, then only the PHP code will be displayed on the web page.
• If we want the user to interact with the web page, then the code for the same should be written along with HTML and the code should be saved as a file with the ‘.php’ extension.
• Some ‘.php’ files have no HTML code. They are only used to communicate, store, and retrieve data from the database. Such files are called internally by another PHP file. The user doesn’t have to access those files directly.
• To execute a PHP file locally,
• The PHP files should be saved in the ‘htdocs’ folder in the Server’s main folder.
• The user will have to start the server locally.
• Then enter ‘127.0.0.1’ i.e. the address of the localhost in the address bar of the web browser.
• All the files in the ‘htdocs’ folder will be visible. The user has to click on the PHP file to be executed.
• Comments in HTML are Written as: <!-- comment -->
• Single-line comments in PHP are written as: //comment
• Multiple continuous lines of comments in PHP are written as:

                                    /* comment

                                    comment */

Conclusion

PHP is one of the easiest and popular languages. It helps to write static as well as dynamic web pages. Its syntax resembles the languages like C. Many developers have chosen to be a master in PHP through self-study. It doesn’t take much time to execute the piece of code.

FAQs

1.   Why Do We Need A Local Web Server For PHP?

Answer:

A web server is needed only for executing the PHP code. HTML, JSON, JavaScript, CSS, JQuery, and Bootstrap don’t need it. Web browsers cannot interpret PHP. Thus, a local web server helps to run the PHP code locally so that the developer doesn’t need to upload it on any other server.

 

2.   Why Use Framework in PHP?

Answer:

• Frameworks provide the elements(such as code libraries, pre-packaged functions, classes, etc.)to design the software. These elements are well-tested and follow the standard rules.
• This decreases the length of the original code to be written.
• They increase the speed of the development process.

 

3.   Which Is The Stable Version Of PHP?

Answer:

Currently, the stable version of PHP is 5.6.3. Remember that new pre-defined functions can be added or old pre-defined functions can be removed with the versions of PHP.

 

4.   Which Technologies Are Needed With PHP?

Answer:

• HTML
• JavaScript
• XML
• JSON
• CSS
• Ajax
• jQuery

5.   What Are Different PHP File Extensions?

Answer:

a) .phps

b) .php3

c) .php4

d) .phtml

e) .php5