Why would you need to learn about PHP, well the facts state that there are over 16 million websites on the internet that use it and it is a very effective server side scripting language. The reasons for the popularity of PHP are that it is free, considerably easy to use and it also offers the user with some of the best options when it comes to functionality.
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Following here are some tips and tricks that should help you to become an expert PHP programmer. There are some differences that exist between PHP and CGI scripts. One of these is that the PHP allows you to embed regular PHP code into the regular HTML text, and this executes the commands of the PHP when the page is clicked on.
When you do this the apache server intercepts the PHP code and passes it off to PHP, then it is replaced with the PHP output code which is then sent back to the server and back to the client. due to the fact that the output contains HTML the browser shows it for display on the browser.
One of the simple rules of PHP is that every PHP statement ends with a semicolon, however, the semicolon is not used to terminate the last line of PHP block, the last line does include semicolon.
Another point to keep in mind is that it is possible to add comments into PHP, it supports both single and multi line comments.
Apart from the content text between the tags everything else is ignored by the parser.
Variables can be treated as a programming construct to store both numeric as well as non numeric data. PHP supports the use of a number of both variables and non variables types. This means that it supports strings, arrays, integers, floating point members etc. The good thing about PHP is that it automatically deciphers what variable type is being used, unlike other scripting languages that require you to specify before using it what variable type you are using.
In PHP every variable needs to be preceded with the $ which is then to be followed with a letter or underscore. A point to be noted is that the variable names of PHP are case sensitive, so the developer needs to keep this point in mind while entering variables.
For the developer to assign value to any variable they need to use the equal symbol =. Here there is the option of assigning more than one variable, and this can be done by inserting the = sign between them.
PHP supports numerous data types and this makes it a very versatile as well as convenient scripting tool.
Then you have the floating points that are typically numbers that have decimal points in them. A classic example of this is 25.5.
String is generally a sequence of characters that are used together, such as in word formations. They need to be enclosed in quotes, which could be double quotes or single quotes. To use quotations in between the string can be done using a backslash.
Just as important as the variables is the operator which makes it all possible. PHP comes with operators for arithmetic, comparison, string, and logical operations.
PHP allows you to also string things together with the use of concatenation operator and is represented by adding (.) and here also you can add in simultaneously.
To install PHP on your Mac some excellent options are MAMP and WAMP and these are recommended in the early stages of learning. Typically WAMP server provides a great developmental environment for installing PHP and other important software such as Apache and SQL.
The advantages of PHP are useful when the required output needs to be dynamic, a lot of these features would not be possible with Static HTML.
Security is one of the essential points that cannot be missed when using PHP, this is a very complicated and in-depth subject on its own however, and the recommended course of action is that every action should be preceded with security. This is called the XSS or cross site scripting attacks are very common and need to be dealt with appropriate security steps to ensure that you do not fall victim to this.
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