PHP Tutorial

PHP Introduction

PHP is a simple yet powerful language designed for creating dynamic web content. It was created as a small set of CGI binary by Rasmus Lerdorf in early 1994 and was originally meant to track visits to his online resume. In the beginning, it was called Personal Home Page tools. As the need for more functionality grew, Rasmus redesigned PHP Tools, resulting in a considerably larger and more robust implementation. The 1995 version of PHP was called PHP/FI version 2. FI was an HTML Form reader package. Down the line support for interacting with database mSQL was added by Rasmus, and developers worldwide started using PHP as their preferred server-side programming language. PHP's popularity continued to increase as developers around the world embraced it as an alternative to Microsoft's ASP language.

One of the essential prerequisites for web development is scripting and programming language, and the most recognized language is PHP.

PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, but still, people also know it as Personal Home Page. PHP is far ahead in popularity from its peers as a web server programming language. The power and simplicity make PHP a universal language, and it's a swiss knife for web developers. Beginners love the language because of its uncomplex nature and easy learning curve. Whether a simple script requires sending an email or a database has driven application.

Before 1997, the development of PHP was a one-person show and bit contribution from here and there. Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans rewrote the parser in 1997 and changed the name to the recursive acronym PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. In June 1998, PHP version 3 was officially launched. Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans started the rewrite of core PHP codes and branded it as Zend Engine in 1999. In June 2002, Zend Engine 1.0 powered PHP 4 launched.

Why learn PHP

PHP is easy to learn as a programming language, and hundreds of built-in functions and hundreds more available via add-ons make PHP an extensive language. Beginner programmers who are just starting in web development frequently consider PHP the best language to learn.

PHP is open-source and free to use, so the cost of development and deployment is much cheaper than closed-source code technology, which charges hefty license fees. It is maintained by a global community of developers who make the source code available for free download and use.

PHP is an extensible programing language. You can write addons in C language to enhance the PHP functionalities, and tons of libraries are readily available to extend the functionalities.

PHP is cross-platform and runs on all major operating systems and servers, including Windows, macOS, Linux, etc. The installation is straightforward, either on Windows or Mac, and it can be installed on Linux operating systems using a few simple steps. it is compatible with practically all modern servers, including Apache, IIS, and others.

PHP is much faster to load and run than other web programming languages like ASP, JAVA, RUBY, PYTHON, etc.

The vast active PHP community of developers is available to help you. A plethora of documentation is present over the internet and is freely available. Large Community: Because PHP is backed by a global community, obtaining help or documentation for PHP on the internet is relatively simple.

PHP is easily embedded with HTML and Javascript, and a PHP file contains both HTML and PHP code. This flexibility and versatility make it easier for a developer to write PHP web pages. It is used to create and manage database-driven dynamic content, session tracking, creating and managing cookies, or complete shopping websites.

PHP supports a wide range of databases, including MySql.

PHP Features

  • Case Sensitive: At the moment of variable declaration, PHP is a case-sensitive scripting language. All keywords (such as if, else, while, echo, and so on), classes, functions, and user-defined functions are case-insensitive in PHP.
  • Platform Independent: PHP code will work on all platforms, including Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, and Windows.
  • Loosely Typed Language: PHP allows you to use variables without having to declare their data type. It will be taken at the time of execution, depending on the type of data it contains.
  • Error Reporting: PHP has certain preset error reporting constants to generate a warning or error notice.
  • Performance: PHP scripts are faster to execute than scripts written in other languages like JSP and ASP. PHP uses its memory, which reduces the server's workload and loading time, resulting in faster processing and better performance.
  • Real-Time Access Monitoring: PHP offers access logging by generating a summary of the user's recent accesses.
  • Security: PHP is a safe language to use when creating a website. To avoid threats and malicious attacks, it has numerous layers of protection.
  • PHP is simple: It is incredibly flexible and straightforward to use, especially when compared to other scripting languages. It is extensively used all around the world. Because of the small learning curve, PHP is one of the most adaptive scripting languages around.