What is PHP?

by EvilRedDuckie

PHP in a Nutshell

PHP stands for PHP Hypertext Preprocessor. It is a server-side, HTML centric, cross-platform scripting language that allows you to make dynamic web pages. It's also often used in conjunction with MySQL to create interactive databases. It can be written as scripts that reside on the server and produce HTML output in your web browser or it can be embedded within HTML pages that are then saved with a .php file extension. Web pages that end with the .php extension are treated just like regular HTML pages and you can create and edit them the same way you would create basic HTML pages. Since PHP is executed on the server, the viewer won't see the code.

What can PHP do?

Basically, anything. You can collect form data, generate dynamic page content, query a database, or send and receive cookies. It can output images, Flash movies, and PDF files that are generated on the fly. Other functions of PHP include guestbooks, forums, ftp, blogging, chat rooms, auctions, and counters. It truely is a versatile language. If you want to do it on a web page, PHP can do it.

Where to find PHP tutorials.

I was going to write a basic PHP tutorial but once I started, I realized that I just don't know enough to do it correctly. Plus, as I was researching PHP for the tutorial, I found that there are already many very well written PHP tutorials available online already. So, here, instead of a clueless tutorial written by a PHP newb, you'll find a list of links to these already existing excellent tutorials.

• php.net: The home of PHP on the internet. It has an excellent tutorial that takes you from the very beginning of coding PHP to the very advanced. It should since this is where it's developed!
  
  
• W3Schools PHP tutorial: The granddaddy of all web design help sites, of course they'd have a comprehensive PHP tutorial that's easy to understand.
  
  
• Free Webmaster Help: PHP explained in layman's terms with easy to follow instructions and references.
  
  
• Tizag.com: An easy to understand tutorial that explains the basics to the beginner. It also provides references to pre-made scripts to help those with little time to learn PHP utilize the language on their website.
  
  
• Hotscripts.com: A plethora of PHP information and pre-made scripts on one site. If you need a premade script and can't find it here, you'd best just buckle down and make it yourself. ;)
  
  
• PHP.FAQTs: A growing collection of PHP related information in a searchable question and answer format.
  
  
• Webmonkey: The PHP section of the infamous Webmonkey tutorial site. Doesn't look like it's been updated in years but it still has some good info for beginners.