Introduction to PHP | Chapter 1

Welcome to the very first tutorial of PHP. In this chapter i will be giving an brief introduction to php language.

• What is PHP?

- It was originally developed by  Rasmus Lerdorf in the year 1994.

- PHP is a server side scripting language just like ASP & unlike c, java etc. The script is executed on the server side & is shown as HTML on the client side thereby hiding the original source code.












- PHP is a loosely typed language as we don't need to specify a data type while creating a  variable like c#, c etc. We just create a variable & assign it integer value.
- PHP is an Compiled language after PHP4.
- It is an Open source software which supports various Platforms like Windows, Unix, mac etc.3
- PHP/Apache is pre-installed in OS X.
- It Supports various databases like  MySQL, Informix, Oracle, Sybase, Solid, PostgreSQL, Generic ODBC, etc.

• What does PHP stands for?

- PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor is the full name of PHP. It originally stood for Personal Home Page. This was changed in 1997 with the release of PHP 3.

• What is a php file ?

- PHP file contains text, html tags, scripts.
- PHP File are shown as html on the client side (browser).
- PHP file have the following extensions  - .php, .phtml, .php4 .php3, .php5, .phps.

• Why PHP?

- PHP helps in creating dynamic web pages.
- PHP is best language for web development.
- It stores users information in the form of session & cookies.
- It allow to add, delete, modify data in the database.
- It is compatible with almost all web server software like Apache, IIS etc.
- Supports various OS platforms like Windows, Unix, Mac etc.
- It is free to download. 







What is MySQL?

- It is a widely used relation database management system (RDBMS).
- MySQL is written in c & c++.
- It is widely used as database for both small & large web applications.
- It is free to download & supports various server packages.
- It is open source & available free for download.




How to get started?

 - Before you start learning PHP you need a place where you can test you php scripts. So firstly we will be downloading EasyPHP software. EasyPHP is a WAMP Server for PHP development and web hosting on Windows. After its installation we can run our scripts locally on our machine. It acts as mini web server.I will not be showing you the installation process as its pretty much easy & straight forward.

- Download EasyPHP - http://www.easyphp.org/ (visit website for more info)