PHP for the Web: Visual QuickStart Guide, Fourth Edition

A. Installation and Configuration

There are three technical requirements for executing all of this book’s examples: MySQL (the database application), PHP (the scripting language), and the Web server application (that PHP runs through). This appendix describes the installation of these tools on two different platforms—Windows XP and Mac OS X. If you are using a hosted Web site, all of this will already be provided for you, but these products are all free and easy enough to install, so putting them on your own computer still makes sense.

After the installation section, this appendix demonstrates some basics for working with MySQL and configuring PHP. The PHP and MySQL manuals cover installation and configuration in a reasonable amount of detail. ...