What Is PHP For Web Development & Why Should You Use It?

If you’ve used compiled languages like C or Go or Swift, the main difference is that you don’t need to compile a PHP program before you run it. Often when you fill out a form online or submit contact details to a website the backend code will send that information to a server using a script inside the PHP file. I didn’t learn php fully before learning other stuff. This tutorial makes me feel like understanding other languages even more.

The vendor folder contains the library just installed and its dependencies. PHP is a server-side language, and one of the handy things it provides is access to the filesystem. Similarly, you can create a test.php file and automatically that will be the file that Apache serves on the /test route. One is within an HTML page, so PHP is used to “add” stuff to the HTML which is manually defined in the .php file.

How to Use a do while loop in PHP

Before you begin to learn PHP, it might be wise to take a moment to plan your approach to learning the language. With each new release, PHP becomes faster https://www.globalcloudteam.com/ than ever before. The newest release, PHP 8.0, includes a just-in-time compiler that already exceeds the previous performance gains in all 7.x releases.

So if the last time you tried it was PHP 5 or even PHP 4, you’ll be surprised at all the good things that PHP now offers. If we move a step above the emotions and look at the language as a tool, PHP has a lot to offer. Child Care Daily App, who used PHP to build an app to serve parents of children in San Diego-based daycare centers. Another is command-line scripting, where neither a browser nor server is used. These types of PHP implementations are useful for automated tasks. PHP has been ported to nearly every operating system and is completely free to use.

The history of PHP programming language

Or you can use it as a Web Application engine that creates HTML pages dynamically and sends them to the browser. This book is a perfect introduction if you’re new to the language. It’s php web development also perfect if you’ve done “some PHP” in the past and you want to get back to it. And it also powers a lot of different frameworks that make Web Development easier, like Laravel.

Originally, the “PHP” within the acronym stood for Personal Home Page. But, as the language evolved and caught on, it ended up being used for more than just personal home pages. So, that acronym, in turn, became just the “P” within PHP.

Client-side features

This is because you’re not the only person using the MySQL server. However, if you’re running a private server, these figures should be much more accurate, and they can help you determine how much bandwidth you’re consuming. Most WordPress hosts come with phpMyAdmin bundled into their cPanel software. However, some managed hosting services such as Flywheel use different tools, so your mileage may vary.

PHP offers you a very comprehensive functions in its standard library . The var_dump($name) instruction will print string “Flavio” to the page, which tells us the variable is a string of 6 characters. Variables in PHP start with the dollar sign $, followed by an identifier, which is a set of alphanumeric chars and the underscore _ char. To the final user, who looks at the browser and has no idea of the code behind the scenes, there’s no difference at all.

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You won’t have to pay a licensing fee, reducing your overall development cost even if you create an extensive website. Data security must be a top priority to sustain and gain more clients. PHP’s flexibility with database management gives the development team more liberty to choose which database suits the website best to protect the company’s information.

• At GoStudent, we offer interactive PHP classes taught by some of the best tutors from around the world.
• It’s no surprise that PHP is that popular among developers — it’s easy to get started with, as the language is clear and well organized.
• The PHP interpreter is responsible for interpreting the instructions written in a PHP program when it’s executed.
• It’s called superglobal and is automatically available in all our PHP files.
• We’ve seen how to define properties and methods that belong to the instance of a class, an object.

If you’re running your own server, you can set up phpMyAdmin on your own, which we’ll discuss in the next section. This user-friendly software enables you to interact with your databases easily. In this article, we’ll talk about what the software does, how to configure it, and some of the tasks it can help you tackle. Rasmus Lerdorf created PHP in 1994 and launched it in 1995. Over the years, after multiple changes, its uses have expanded to various functions, including designing the current web pages that we see today.

How can I use PHP as a programming language?

The functions we’ve defined so far are named functions. Variables defined outside of the function are not accessible inside the function. Functions are one of the most important concepts in programming. Arrays are lists of values grouped under a common name. The function does something and when it’s done it can return a value. If there’s no value returned, the function returns null.

Also, they are specific to the browser / device, so we can set a cookie in the user’s browser, but if they change browser or device, the cookie will not be available. We can use headers to say to the browser “cache this page”, “don’t cache this page”, and a lot more. PHP lets us set the HTTP headers of a response through the header() function. See, now we got the same information but the URL didn’t change.

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The ternary operator may be fine for one-liners, prototypes, and templates, but an ordinary conditional statement is always better. PHP is descriptive and verbose, and the code should be, too. It is a favored Content Management System that offers the best of both worlds, i.e., comfort and flexibility.