WordPress® All-in-One For Dummies®

Chapter 3: Introducing PHP and MySQL

In This Chapter

• Working with PHP and MySQL
• Creating a page with PHP
• Managing a database with MySQL

In Book VI, you dig into the code necessary to create functions and features on your Web site. Many, if not all, of these functions and features use Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) tags. When combined with the WordPress code, these tags make things happen (such as displaying post content, categories, archives, links, and more) on your Web site.

One of the reasons WordPress is the most popular content management system (CMS) is that you don't need to know PHP code to use it. That's to say, you can use WordPress easily without ever looking at any of the code or template files contained within it. However, if you want to tweak the settings of your WordPress theme (flip to Book VI) or the code of a particular plugin (see Book VII), you need to understand some basics of how PHP works. But don't worry; you don't need to be a PHP programmer.

This chapter introduces you to the very basics of PHP and MySQL, which is the database system that stores your WordPress data. After you read this chapter, you'll understand how PHP and MySQL work together with the WordPress platform to serve up your Web site in visitors' browsers.

This book doesn't turn you into a PHP programmer or MySQL database administrator, but it gives you a glimpse of how PHP and MySQL work ...