PHP Introduction And Enviornment Setup

1. About PHP File
   
   A PHP file can contain the text, HTML, JavaScript, CSS and PHP code. How, we see in the next tutorials. The PHP file saves on server and runs on the server. The extension of the PHP file is .php.
   
   
2. Powers of PHP
   
   PHP can generate dynamic page content. PHP can create, open, read, write, delete, and close files on the server. It can collect form data. PHP can send and receive cookies and it can add, delete, and modify data in your database. PHP can be used to control user-access & authentication. It can encrypt data.
   
   
3. Reasons of using PHP
   
   PHP runs on various platforms (Windows, Linux, UNIX, Mac OS X, etc.). PHP is compatible with almost all servers used today (Apache, IIS, etc.). PHP supports a wide range of databases and is free. Download it from the official PHP resource: www.php.net. It is easy to learn and runs efficiently on the server side.

Environment Setup for PHP

To use PHP, we need a web host with PHP support. Now you just create some .php file and save this on your web directory, the web host server will automatically parse them and then a user can access this web page, there is no need to compile using extra tools for making it run. PHP is free and most of the web hosts supports the PHP.

So we can use your system as a web server, to do this we need some software:

1. Install a web server
2. Install PHP
3. Install a database, such as MySQL

This is very boring to install all software partially and use it partially, instead, we can use xampp. There is only one software that need to install in the system that provide a GUI control panel.

To install xampp here are the steps:

1. Open the URL.
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2. Click download (Available for Linux and MAC os & 32 bit and 64 bit ).
   
   
3. After downloading, open the installation package.
   
   
   
   
4. Follow the steps (you know how to install software).

The next thing we want an editing software like notepad. Here, I will suggest to use notepad++. To install it the steps are:

1. Open the URL.
   
   
   
   
2. Click on the link which is in marked red here. Notepad ++ is downloaded in your computer.
   
   
3. Then install it, you know well how to install software no extra things are to be done.

We use notepad++ to write our code. And it is a very user friendly editor.

The theory is not fully discussed but enough to start I will tell you about the theory when it needed in programming.

So these are the boring stuff of all programming languages.

Now we start with some coding.

Reference

• PHP 5 Introduction