PHP

Professor Waterman

Agenda

What is PHP Versions HTML Dynamic Web sites Interactive Web Sites Installing PHP Transfer pages to a

Web hosting service

Who uses PHP Language Basics Database manipulation Server-side Processing Object-oriented Increased Security Cross platform Web Servers Development tools

History of PHP

PHP succeeds an older product, named PHP/FI. PHP/FI was created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1995, initially as a simple set of Perl scripts for tracking accesses to his online resume. He named this set of scripts 'Personal Home Page Tools'. As more functionality was required, Rasmus wrote a much larger C implementation, which was able to communicate with databases, and enabled users to develop simple dynamic Web applications. Rasmus chose to release the source code for PHP/FI for everybody to see, so that anybody can use it, as well as fix bugs in it and improve the code.

History of PHP

PHP/FI, which stood for Personal Home Page / Forms Interpreter, included some of the basic functionality of PHP as we know it today. It had Perl-like variables, automatic interpretation of form variables and HTML embedded syntax. The syntax itself was similar to that of Perl, albeit much more limited, simple, and somewhat inconsistent.

History of PHP

By 1997, PHP/FI 2.0, the second write-up of the C implementation, had a cult of several thousand users around the world (estimated), with approximately 50,000 domains reporting as having it installed, accounting for about 1% of the domains on the Internet. While there were several people contributing bits of code to this project, it was still at large a one-man project.

What is PHP

A Popular scripting Language used to create powerful and dynamic Web sites.

Currently used in over five million web sites around the world.

PHP is open-source software– free of charge– No restrictions on the code you create

PHP is server-side software Used to create database driven web sites

What is PHP

PHP is a thriving community of individuals from:– The learning communities– Field of academic– Programming– sciences

There is an entire community of people out there successfully communicating via the Web.

More importantly:

Versions

PHP is constantly evolving and a new version of the language is released every few years. As a result, each new version of PHP offers more features than the previous versions.

HTML

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the markup languauge used to create Web pages. PHP can be used to dynamically generate the HTML code for a Web page.

PHP is embedded into HTML code with the use of special tags, called delimiters.

Embedding PHP code into HTML code makes it possible to enhance existing Web pages on a Web site.

Dynamic Web Sites

Dynamic Web sites contain Web pages that display constantly changing content. Using PHP, you can determine the content a Web page displays, depending on many different factors (i.e., you can have a page display different information depending on the date, time, and or users location.

Dynamic pages increase the interest in your page more so than static pages

Interactive Web Sites

Allows visitors to your site the ability to exchange information between the Web site and the user.

Allows Web developers to easily create Web pages that process information submitted by the user.

Web sites are tailored to meet the needs of individual users-which in turn makes your site more appealing

Database Manipulation

One of the most essential features of PHP is the ability to incorporate database into your Web site.

You can work with a number of databases such as, MySQL, Oracle, and Sybase.

Make the information store in the database available to users.

With PHP ability to store and access database you can display up-to-date information for your visitors

PHP can also allow users to manipulate the data in the database (users can edit and delete information).

Inserting PHP code into a Web page

PHP code is inserted into HTML code using <?php opening delimiter and ?> closing delimiter.

The delimiter tells the Web server where the PHP code begins and ends.

You must use an opening and closing tag for each section of code.

PHP code used to generate output must be inserted between the <body> and </body> tags

Server-Side Processing

A Web server processes all the PHP code in a Web page and translates the code into simple HTML code.

Web developers do not have to take into consideration the type of Web browsers used by the clients. Any browser that can view Web pages can view pages containing PHP code processed by a Web server

Object-Oriented

Object-Oriented programming is a type of programming that treats packages of code as distinct modules, or objects. Using objects can make a large Web application easier to manage.

PHP supports object-oriented programming concepts that allow Web developers to write code in an oriented fashion.

Increased Security

PHP is more secure than HTML because PHP code is processed on a Web server there users can not access the code used to create the PHP page.

This makes it safer to create user names, passwords, and other sensitive data.

If a user views the source code all he will see it the HTML code generated by PHP, not the PHP code itself.

Cross Platform

PHP can be installed on computers using different Windows, MAC, and Unix operating systems.

The majority of PHP code will work on any platform.

Web Servers

You do not need a Web server to view the pages, however, you do need server software

The server software would be Apache, Microsoft’s Web server products, Internet Information Server (IIS) and Personal Web Server (PWS).

Server software and or a Web host service can also be used to store PHP pages

Development Tools

PHP does not required special development tools, all you need is a text editor such as Notepad and a browser.

There are a number of programs that were create to work with PHP such as Dreamweaver, Coldfusion, and Homesite

PHP Books

PHP Professional Projects, by Ashish Wilfred, Meeta Gupta, and Kartik Bhatnagar Premier Press

PHP Your visual blueprint for creating open source, server-side content

Visual Quickpro Guide, PHP Advanced for the World Wide Web, Larry Ullman

PHP Fast & Easy web development, Julie C. Meloni

Web Resources

www.php.net www.zend.com www.devshed.com www.phpbuilder.com www.webmonkey.com www.weberdev.com www.bravenet.com www.faqts.com

Px.sklar.com www.phpusersgroups.org www.mysql.com www.e-gineer.com www.sourceforge.com www.hotscripts.com www.useit.com