Introduction of PHP

PHP started as a small open source project that evolved as more and more people

found out how useful it was. Rasmus Lerdorf released the first form of PHP way back

in 1994.

1. PHP is a recursive acronym for "PHP: hypertext Preprocessor".

2. PHP is a server-side scripting language that is embedded in HTML. it is used to

manage dynamic content, databases, session tracking, even build entire eCommerce

sites.

3. it is integrated with a number of popular databases, including MySQL, Oracle, Sybase and Microsoft SQL Server.

4. PHP is pleasantly zippy in its execution, especially when collected an  Apache

module on the UNIX.

 The Mysql server once started and executes even very

complex queries with immense result sets in record-setting time.

5. PHP supports a large number of major protocols such as POP3 and  IMAP. PHP4 added support for Java spread object styles making n-tier development a possibility for the first time.

6. PHP is forgiving: PHP is forgiving: PHP language stabs to be as merciful

7. PHP Syntax is C-Like.

PHP Features

The main features of PHP are:

• PHP is web-specific and open source

• Scripts are embedded into static hypertext markup language files

• fast execution of scripts

• fast access to the database tier of applications

• Supported by most web server and OS.

• for IMAP, NNTP, SMTP and POP3. 

• Supports many DBM

• Supports many DBMS libraries available for UNIX system DBM,

MySQL, Oracle,

• Dynamic Output any text, hypertext markup language XHTML and any other XML file.

• also Dynamic Output images, pdf file, and even Flash movies

• Text processing features, from the POSIX Extended or Perl regular expressions

to parsing XML document.

• a fully featured programming language suitable for complex system

development

What can PHP do?
As we have just aforementioned PHP is a fully featured programming language
so it will do just about everything.
However, it is best suited and is mainly focused on server-side
scripting so {you can|you'll|you'll be able to} do anything any other CGI program can do
such as:
• Collect form data,
• Generate dynamic page content,
• Send & receive cookies.
• But PHP can do ample extra than we have not got time to deal with
here
– Please refer to recommended course book.
– websites: http://www.php.org,
http://www.php-scripts.com, http://php.resourceindex.com,
and others.

PHP support and installation.
PHP will be used on all major OS :
• Linux
• many UNIX operating system variants ( including power unit - UX , Solaris, and OpenBSD )
Microsoft Windows ,
• Mac OS X
• Windows
• RISC OS ,
• and probably others.
PHP already installed on the varsity network