Php - Course for Beginners in English

PHP is the most popular scripting language on the web. Without PHP Facebook, Yahoo, Google wouldn't have exist. The course is geared to make you a PHP pro. Once you digest all basics, the course will help you create your very own Opinion Poll application.


Just a full form of PHP would be enough to learn this course. This tutorial is designed for beginners with little or no PHP experience.

What is PHP? Write your first PHP Program

PHP is a server side scripting language. that is used to develop Static websites or Dynamic websites or Web applications. PHP stands for Hypertext Pre-processor, that earlier stood for Personal Home Pages.

PHP scripts can only be interpreted on a server that has PHP installed.

The client computers accessing the PHP scripts require a web browser only.

A PHP file contains PHP tags and ends with the extension ".php".

In this tutorial, you will learn-

What is a Scripting Language?

• Scripting VS Programming Language
• What does PHP stand for?
• Php Syntax
• Why use PHP?
• What is PHP used for & Market share
• PHP vs ASP.NET VS JSP VS CFML
• PHP File Extensions
• PHP Hello world

What is a Scripting Language?

A script is a set of programming instructions that is interpreted at runtime.
A scripting language is a language that interprets scripts at runtime. Scripts are usually embedded into other software environments.

The purpose of the scripts is usually to enhance the performance or perform routine tasks for an application.

Server side scripts are interpreted on the server while client side scripts are interpreted by the client application.

PHP is a server side script that is interpreted on the server while JavaScript is an example of a client side script that is interpreted by the client browser. Both PHP and JavaScript can be embedded into HTML pages.

Programming Language Vs Scripting Language

Programming language Scripting language
Has all the features needed to develop complete applications. Mostly used for routine tasks
The code has to be compiled before it can be executed The code is usually executed without compiling
Does not need to be embedded into other languages Is usually embedded into other software environments.

What does PHP stand for?

PHP means - Personal Home Page, but it now stands for the recursive backronym PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.
PHP code may be embedded into HTML code, or it can be used in combination with various web template systems, web content management system and web frameworks.

Php Syntax

What is PHP? Write your first PHP Program

A PHP file can also contain tags such as HTML and client side scripts such as JavaScript.

HTML is an added advantage when learning PHP Language. You can even learn PHP without knowing HTML but it’s recommended you at least know the basics of HTML.
Database management systems DBMS for database powered applications.
For more advanced topics such as interactive applications and web services, you will need JavaScript and XML.
The flowchart diagram shown below illustrates the basic architecture of a PHP web application and how the server handles the requests.

What is PHP? Write your first PHP Program

Why use PHP?

You have obviously head of a number of programming languages out there; you may be wondering why we would want to use PHP as our poison for the web programming. Below are some of the compelling reasons.

PHP is open source and free.
Short learning curve compared to other languages such as JSP, ASP etc.
Large community document
Most web hosting servers support PHP by default unlike other languages such as ASP that need IIS. This makes PHP a cost effective choice.
PHP is regular updated to keep abreast with the latest technology trends.
Other benefit that you get with PHP is that it’s a server side scripting language; this means you only need to install it on the server and client computers requesting for resources from the server do not need to have PHP installed; only a web browser would be enough.
PHP has in built support for working hand in hand with MySQL; this doesn’t mean you can’t use PHP with other database management systems. You can still use PHP with
Postgres
Oracle

MS SQL Server

ODBC etc.
PHP is cross platform; this means you can deploy your application on a number of different operating systems such as windows, Linux, Mac OS etc.
What is PHP used for & Market share
In terms of market share, there are over 20 million websites and application on the internet developed using PHP scripting language.

This may be attributed to the points raised above;

The diagram below shows some of the popular sites that use PHP

PHP Hello world

The program shown below is a basic PHP application that outputs the words “Hello World!” When viewed in a web browser.

<?php
echo "Hello world";
?>
A PHP file can also contain tags such as HTML and client side scripts such as JavaScript.

HTML is an added advantage when learning PHP Language. You can even learn PHP without knowing HTML but it’s recommended you at least know the basics of HTML.
Database management systems DBMS for database powered applications.
For more advanced topics such as interactive applications and web services, you will need JavaScript and XML.
The flowchart diagram shown below illustrates the basic architecture of a PHP web application and how the server handles the requests.

Why use PHP?

You have obviously head of a number of programming languages out there; you may be wondering why we would want to use PHP as our poison for the web programming. Below are some of the compelling reasons.

• PHP is open source and free.
• Short learning curve compared to other languages such as JSP, ASP etc.
• Large community document
• Most web hosting servers support PHP by default unlike other languages such as ASP that need IIS. This makes PHP a cost effective choice.
• PHP is regular updated to keep abreast with the latest technology trends.
• Other benefit that you get with PHP is that it’s a server side scripting language; this means you only need to install it on the server and client computers requesting for resources from the server do not need to have PHP installed; only a web browser would be enough.
• PHP has in built support for working hand in hand with MySQL; this doesn’t mean you can’t use PHP with other database management systems. You can still use PHP with
• Postgres
• Oracle
• MS SQL Server
• ODBC etc.

PHP is cross platform; this means you can deploy your application on a number of different operating systems such as windows, Linux, Mac OS etc.

What is PHP used for & Market share

In terms of market share, there are over 20 million websites and application on the internet developed using PHP scripting language.

This may be attributed to the points raised above;

The diagram below shows some of the popular sites that use PHP 

PHP vs Asp.Net VS JSP VS CFML

ASP – Active Server Pages, JSP – Java Server Pages, CFML – Cold Fusion Markup language The table below compares the various server side scripting languages with PHP

FEATURE	PHP	ASP	JSP	CFML
Learning curve	short	Longer than PHP	Longer than PHP	Longer than PHP
Web hosting	Supported by almost all hosting servers	Needs dedicated server	Fairly supported	Needs dedicated server
Open source	Yes	No	Yes	Both commercial and open source
Web services support	Built in	Uses the .NET framework	Uses add on libraries	Built in
Integration with HTML	Easy	Fairly complex	Fairly complex	Easy
MySQL support	Native	Needs third party drivers	Needs third party drivers	Current version has native support. Older versions use ODBC
Easily extended by other languages PHP File Extensions File extension and Tags In order for the server to identify our PHP files and scripts, we must save the file with the “.php” extension. Older PHP file extensions include .phtml .php3 .php4 .php5 .phps PHP was designed to work with HTML, and as such, it can be embedded into the HTML code. You can create PHP files without any html tags and that is called Pure PHP file . The server interprets the PHP code and outputs the results as HTML code to the web browsers. In order for the server to identify the PHP code from the HTML code, we must always enclose the PHP code in PHP tags. A PHP tag starts with the less than symbol followed by the question mark and then the words “php”. PHP is a case sensitive language, “VAR” is not the same as “var”. The PHP tags themselves are not case-sensitive, but it is strongly recommended that we use lower case letter. The code below   illustrates the above point. <?php … ?> We will be referring to the PHP lines of code as statements. PHP statements end with a semi colon (;). If you only have one statement, you can omit the semi colon. If you have more than one statement, then you must end each line with a semi colon. For the sake of consistency, it is recommended that you always end your statement(s) with a semi colon.  PHP scripts are executed on the server. The output is returned in form of HTML . PHP Hello world The program shown below is a basic PHP application that outputs the words “Hello World!” When viewed in a web browser. <?php echo "Hello world"; ?> Output: Hello world Summary PHP stands for Hypertext pre-processor PHP is a server side scripting language. This means that it is executed on the server. The client applications do not need to have PHP installed. PHP files are saved with the ".php" file extension, and the PHP development code is enclosed in tags. PHP is open source and cross platformYes How to Download & Install XAMPP & NetBeans: PHP Tutorial  What is XAMPP? XAMPP is an open source cross platform web server, MySQL database engine, and PHP and Perl package. It is compiled and maintained by apache. The acronym XAMPP stands for; X – [cross platform operating systems] meaning it can run on any OS  Mac OX , Windows , Linux etc. A – Apache - this is the web server software. M – MySQL - Database. P – PHP P – Perl – scripting language Why use XAMPP? In order to use PHP, you will need to install PHP, Apache and may be even MySQL. It’s not easy to install Apache and configure it. If you install Apache on its own, you will still have to set it up and integrate it with PHP and Perl among other things. XAMPP deals with all the complexity in setting up and integrating with PHP and Perl. Unlike Java that runs with the Java SDK only, PHP requires a web server to work XAMPP provides an easy to use control panel to manage Apache, MySQL and other programs such as Tomcat, filezilla etc. You don’t have to memorize commands for starting apache, MySQL etc. In this tutorial, you will learn- How to Download and Install XAMPP Basic Web server configuration XAMPP Control Panel Configure XAMPP What is the best PHP IDE? Introduction to Netbeans IDE Creating a new PHP project using the Netbeans IDE Running your first PHP Example How to Download and Install XAMPP We look into step by step process to install XAMPP for Windows. For Other Operating Systems, installation steps are similar. Download the XAMPP installer at http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html Installation XAMPP is just like installing any other windows program. There are however, a few things that we must note. After you have downloaded XAMPP, run the setup. The warning message dialog window shown below appears.   If you are using windows Vista or Windows 7, make sure that you deactivate the User Account Control feature. To do this, Select Control Panel >  User Accounts >  Change User Access Control settings. The diagram below illustrates the main steps. If you are using windows Vista or Windows 7, make sure that you deactivate the User Account Control feature. To do this, Select Control Panel >  User Accounts >  Change User Access Control settings. The diagram below illustrates the main steps.	No	Extended using Java classes and libraries.	Yes

In the succeeding screen, click next

In the next screen, Change the installation path if required. Click Next

In the next screen select Apache and MySQL. You may optionally select                                                             FileZilla (FTP Client) if needed. Click Install

Note a service is a long-running program in windows that does not require user intervention. Services can be set to run automatically whenever the windows operating system is started. For you to use Apache and MySQL, they are supposed to be running in the background. Installing them as services runs both Apache and MySQL automatically in the background whenever you power up your computer. If you have not installed Apache and MySQL as services, then you have to manually start them every time that you want to use them. You will have to do this from the XAMPP control panel.PHP and

On successful completion of installation, you will see following window

Click on Finish button

Before we test our XAMPP installation, let’s first look at the basic directories that we will be working with.

Basic Web server configuration

This tutorial assumes that you have installed XAMPP on drive C in Windows using the steps mentioned above. The following is a list of the basic directories that you are supposed to be aware of.