Building Web Sites All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies®

Chapter 3. Introduction to PHP

In This Chapter

• Understanding PHP

• Discovering PHP server side requirements and PHP syntax

• Adding variables to the code

• Creating conditional statements

• Getting loopy: While and For

If your client needs an interactive Web site, PHP is yet another language you can use. Like ASP (the subject of the previous chapter), PHP scripts within PHP pages are interpreted by the server. PHP supports databases. In fact, many bulletin board and blog applications are created with PHP code. These applications use a MySQL database to store bulletin board and blog data. You can also create your own PHP pages using an HTML editing application like Dreamweaver. So if you need interactive pages that update when they're visited, read on, for the pages that follow introduce you to PHP.

What Is PHP?

PHP originally stood for Personal Home Page. Now, the acronym means PHP HyperText Processor. PHP pages contain HTML tags and PHP scripts to create a page that can change depending on user interactivity. The PHP page, when visited, is converted into HTML by the server. You can't view the original PHP code by viewing the source code from the browser. All you see if you do this is the HTML code generated by the server after parsing the PHP code. PHP pages can have all the other goodies that HTML pages have, such as text, hyperlinks, and so on. Many applications, such as interactive calendars, blogs, and bulletin boards, are powered by PHP. Unlike ASP, PHP is cross‐platform, which means it can ...