Learning PHP 7

Chapter 2. Web Applications with PHP

Web applications are a common thing in our lives, and they are usually very user friendly; users do not need to understand how they work behind the scenes. As a developer, though, you need to understand how your application works internally.

In this chapter, you will learn about:

• HTTP and how web applications make use of it
• Web applications and how to build a simple one
• Web servers and how to launch your PHP built-in web server

The HTTP protocol

If you check the RFC2068 standard at https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2068, you will see that its description is almost endless. Luckily, what you need to know about this protocol, at least for starters, is way shorter.

HTTP stands for HyperText Transfer Protocol. As any other ...