PHP Basic Concept

PHP BASIC CONCEPTS 

PHP is a server-side scripting language. 

What You Should Already Know 

Before you continue you should have a basic understanding of the following: 

• HTML/XHTML 

• JavaScript 

• 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 
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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 FREE to download from the official PHP resource: ‘; 
• PHP is easy to learn and runs efficiently on the server side 

Where to Start? 

To get access to a web server with PHP support, you can: 

• Install Apache (or IIS) on your own server, install PHP, and MySQL 
• Or find a web hosting plan with PHP and MySQL support