PHP - Hypertext Preprocessor

PHP - HypertextPreprocessorYaron BenitaDe Paul University

PHPl Introductionl Historyl Language syntaxl Advantages

What is PHPAn established server-side, crossplatform embedded HTML scriptinglanguage for creating dynamic Webpages.PHP provides many features thatcommercial entities are looking for.

PHP Advantages Exceptionally short learning curveQuick development timeVery high performancesupports all major platforms (UNIX,Windows and even mainframes). Features native support for mostpopular databases

Intranet Design Magazine"PHP was built with the needs of Webdevelopers in mind. Unlike othercumbersome, overhead-ladenapproaches, PHP is lightweight andfocused on the Web - where it can solvecomplex problem scenarios quicker andmore easily than comparabletechnologies."

History of PHPl 1994 - PHP was conceived sometimes inthe Fall of 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorfl 1995 - PHP/FI Version 2. ( IntroducingmySql data base)l 1997 – approximately 50,000 web sites.Introducing PHP Version 3.(Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans )l 2000 – PHP 4 was introduced, using“Zend” scripting engine. ( 5.1 millionweb sites. )

PHP-Enabled Web Pagesl Treated just like regular HTMLpages and you can create and editthem the same way you normallycreate regular HTML pages.l As simple as HTML files with awhole new family of magical tagsthat let you do all sorts of things.

Simple Example:File name : Hello.php h t m l h e a d title P H PTest /title / h e a d body ? p h p e c h o " H e l l o W o r l d p " ; ? /body /html

PHP Languagel Condition statements, loop statements,arrays .l Built in libraries. (sorting, list, queue.)l Functions.l Classes. ( Objects, Inheritance . )l String Manipulation. ( Perl )l Built in support forencryption/Decryption functions.( MD5,DES, )

More on PHP Language:l Text files manipulation. ( Read,write, .)l Supports java objects, COMobjects .l Sessions, cookies

A More Useful Example ?php echo HTTP USER AGENT; ? Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0) ? p h p p h p i n f o (); ? Alist of all the global variables.

Using if Statements ?phpif(strstr( H T T P U S E R A G E N T ," M SI E " )) { ? center b Y o u are usingInternet Explorer /b /center ? } else { ? center b Y o u are not usingInternet Explorer /b /center ?} ?

Dealing with Formsl One of the most powerful featuresof PHP is the way it handles HTMLformsl Any form element in a form willautomatically result in a variablewith the same name as the elementbeing created on the target page.

FORM Example: HTML Page: form action "action.php" method "post" Your name: input type "text"name "name" You age: input type "text" name "age" i n p u t t y p e " s u b m it" /form action.php.Hi ? p h p e c h o n a m e ; ? .Y o u a r e ? p h p e c h o a g e ; ? years old.

Database Supportl mySQL - PHP and MySQL work very welltogether, in addition to the speed andfeatures of each individual tool.l PHP is open-source, and offersexcellent connectivity to most of today'scommon databases including Oracle,Sybase, MySQL, ODBC (and others).l PHP also offers integration with variousexternal libraries which enable thedeveloper to do anything fromgenerating PDF documents to parsingXML.

MySQL Examplel Connect to MySQL.l Send a query.l Print a table heading.l Print table rows until end of thetable has been reached.

MySQL Example ?php conn mysql connect("localhost", “yaron", ""); res mysql query("SELECT * FROM users", conn); header printed false;print " TABLE \n";do { data mysql fetch array( res);// Retrieve the next row of data.if (!is array( data)) {break;}

MySQL Example (continue)if (! header printed) {print " TR ";reset( data);while (list( name, value) each( data)) {print " TH name /TH \n"}print " /TR \n"; header printed true;}print " TR \n";print " TD ";print implode(" /TD \nprint " /TR \n";} while ( data);print " /TABLE \n";? TD ", data);

Reasons for Using PHPl Speed and robustness.l Superior Memory Managementl No Hidden Costs with PHPl Integration with MySQL database.l Closer to Java/C Style ofProgramming.l No Show Stopper Bugs.l Cross Platform Migration Strategy.

Where to Find More l PHP Homepage: http://www.php.netl PHP-to-MySQL database php3/intro/index.htmll Zend.com: http://www.Zend.com/

History of PHP l1994 - PHP was conceived sometimes in the Fall of 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorf l1995 - PHP/FI Version 2. ( Introducing mySql data base) l1997 – approximately 50,000 web sites. Introducing PHP Version 3. (Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans ) l2000 – PHP 4 was introduced, using “Zend ” sc