1. PHP Basics for Designers

• • Matthew Turland

• Atlanta Web Designers Group

• November 11, 2008

2. So what is PHP?

• A programming language.

• Mainly intended for web applications.

• Also useful for other things.

• That last part is another story for another time...

3. Let's jump right in...

• These do the same thing.

• Hello world!

4. How is that useful?

• When 'Hello world!' could be anything.

• ...

• Result :

  Goodbye cruel world!

5. Can you break that down?

opening PHP tag variable assignment operator string (quote to quote) closing PHP tag end of statement 6. A little shorter, maybe?

• These do the same thing.

• For #2, short_open_tag must be on.

7. Now you see me...

• The HTML here is displayed.

• ...

• ...

8. ... and now you don't.

• The HTML here isnotdisplayed.

• ...

• ...

Here's why 9. On one condition...

• ...

comparison operator == for is != for is not 10. Playing with strings

• These all result in the same output.

• echo 'Hello'.' '.'world!';

• $greeting = 'Hello';

• echo $greeting.' '.'world!';

• $object = 'world';

• echo $greeting.' '.$object.'!';

concatenation operator (combines strings) 11. Building strings

• These do the same thing.

• $greeting = 'Hello';

• $greeting= $greeting .' world!';

• $greeting = 'Hello';

• $greeting.=' world!';

12. All for one...

• Your standard HTML list.

• Milk

• Eggs

• ...

• Bread

13. ... one for all.

• The same list of items in PHP.

• ...

14. Adding a dimension...

row column key value 15. ... and displaying it.

• >

16. The results are in!

• Exciting New Headline

• News from yesterday

17. The not-so-great wall

• http://example.com/foo.php?title=

• Result :

• Most likely, this is not good for security.

18. The great escape

• http://example.com/foo.php?title=

• Result :

  ...

• Rendered result:

19. Stylish yet functional

• Functions are reusable bits of code.

• function ul($items) {

• $result = '
  • ';

• foreach ($items as $item) {

• $result .= '
• ' . htmlspecialchars($item) . '';

• }

• return $result . '

';

• }

20. Call me

• This...

• ... becomes this...

• • Milk
  • Eggs
  • Bread

21. Plug and play Content 22. Want to learn more?

• http://php.net/manual/en

• http://phpcommunity.org

• irc://irc.freenode.net/phpc

• http://phpwomen.org

• irc://irc.freenode.net/phpwomen

• http://phpbuilder.com/board

• http://www.amazon.com/dp/0596005601

23. To sum it up...

• Avoid copy and paste. Includes and functions!

• Before outputting variables, escape them!

• PHP has lots of built-in functions. Use them!

• Don't let your learning about PHP stop here!

24. Questions?