What You Should Already Know
Before proceeding, you should have a basic understanding of:
What is PHP?
- PHP stands for “PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.”
- It is a widely-used, open-source scripting language.
- PHP scripts are executed on the server.
- PHP is free to download and use.
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PHP is an amazing and popular language!
It’s powerful enough to be the backbone of the largest blogging platform on the web, WordPress.
It’s robust enough to power large social networks.
It’s also simple enough to be a beginner’s first server-side language.
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What is a PHP File?
- PHP files can include text, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP code.
- PHP code is executed on the server, and the output is sent to the browser as plain HTML.
- PHP files use the “.php” extension.
What Can PHP Do?
- PHP can generate dynamic web page content.
- PHP can create, open, read, write, delete, and close files on the server.
- PHP can collect form data.
- PHP can send and receive cookies.
- PHP can add, delete, and modify data in your database.
- PHP can manage user access.
- PHP can encrypt data.
With PHP, you’re not limited to generating HTML; you can also output images, PDF files, or any text format like XHTML and XML.
Why PHP?
- PHP is compatible with multiple platforms, including Windows, Linux, Unix, and Mac OS X.
- It works seamlessly with nearly all current web servers, such as Apache and IIS.
- PHP also supports a broad range of databases. As an open-source language,
- PHP is free to download from its official website at www.php.net.
- It’s straightforward to learn and performs efficiently on the server side.
What’s new in PHP 7
- PHP 7 offers significant performance improvements over its predecessor, PHP 5.6.
- PHP 7 introduces enhanced error handling capabilities.
- PHP 7 supports stricter type declarations for function arguments.
- PHP 7 introduces new operators, such as the spaceship operator (<=>).
