PHP
(recursive acronym for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor") is a
widely-used Open Source general-purpose scripting language that is
especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML.
Simple answer, but what does
that mean? An example:
Example. An introductory
example
|
<html>
<head>
<title>Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
echo
"Hi, I'm a PHP
script!";
?>
</body>
</html>
|
Notice how this is different
from a script written in other languages like Perl or C -- instead of
writing a program with lots of commands to output HTML, you write an HTML
script with some embedded code to do something (in this case, output some
text). The PHP code is enclosed in special start and end tags that allow you
to jump into and out of "PHP mode".
What distinguishes PHP from
something like client-side JavaScript is that the code is executed on the
server. If you were to have a script similar to the above on your server,
the client would receive the results of running that script, with no way of
determining what the underlying code may be. You can even configure your web
server to process all your HTML files with PHP, and then there's really no
way that users can tell what you have up your sleeve.
The best things in using PHP are
that it is extremely simple for a newcomer, but offers many advanced
features for a professional programmer. Don't be afraid reading the long
list of PHP's features. You can jump in, in a short time, and start writing
simple scripts in a few hours.
Although PHP's development is
focused on server-side scripting, you can do much more with it. Read on, and
see more in the PHP Manual
section.
