Chapter 2Introducing MySQL
In Chapter 1, we installed and set up two software programs: the Apache web server with PHP, and the MySQL database server. If you followed my recommendation, you would have set them up using an all-in-one package like XAMPP or MAMP, but don’t let that diminish your sense of accomplishment!
As I explained in that chapter, PHP is a server-side scripting language that lets you insert instructions into your web pages that your web server software (in most cases, Apache) will execute before it sends those pages to browsers that request them. In a brief example, I showed how it was possible to insert the current date into a web page every time it was requested.
Now, that’s all well and good, but it really gets interesting ...
Get PHP & MySQL: Novice to Ninja, 5th Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
