What is PHP?

PHP is an open-source general purpose scripting language, widely used for website development. It is developed by Rasmus Lerdorf. PHP stands for a recursive acronym PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.

PHP is the world’s most popular server-side programming language. Its latest version PHP 8.2.8, released on July 4th, 2023.

PHP is a server-side scripting language that is embedded in HTML. PHP is a cross-platform language, capable of running on all major operating system platforms and with most of the web server programs such as Apache, IIS, lighttpd and nginx.

A large number of reusable classes and libraries are available on PEAR and Composer. PEAR (PHP Extension and Application Repository) is a distribution system for reusable PHP libraries or classes. Composer is a dependency management tool in PHP.

Why Learn PHP?

PHP one of the most preferred languages for creating interactive websites and web applications. PHP scripts can be easily embedded into HTML. With PHP, you can build

• Web Pages and Web-Based Applications
• Content Management Systems, and
• Ecommerce Applications etc.

A number of PHP based web frameworks have been developed to speed-up the web application development. The examples are WordPress, Laravel, Symfony etc.

Advantages of Using PHP

PHP is a MUST for students and working professionals to become great Software Engineers, especially when they are working in Web Development Domain.

Some of the most notable advantages of using PHP are listed below −

• PHP is a multi-paradigm language that supports imperative, functional, object-oriented, and procedural programming methodologies.
• PHP is a server-side scripting language that is embedded in HTML. It is used to manage dynamic content, databases, session tracking, even build entire e-commerce sites.
• PHP is integrated with a number of popular databases including MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, Sybase, Informix, and Microsoft SQL Server.
• PHP is pleasingly zippy in its execution, especially when compiled as an Apache module on the Unix side. The MySQL server, once started, executes even very complex queries with huge result sets in record-setting time.
• PHP supports a number of protocols such as POP3, IMAP, and LDAP. PHP supports distributed object architectures (COM and CORBA), which makes n-tier development possible.
• PHP is forgiving: PHP language tries to be as forgiving as possible.
• PHP has a familiar C-like syntax.

There are five important characteristics of PHP that make its practical nature possible: Simplicity, Efficiency, Security, Flexibility, and Familiarity.

Hello World Using PHP

Just to give you a little excitement about PHP, I’m going to give you a small conventional PHP Hello World program. You can try it using the Demo link.

<?php
   echo "Hello, World!";
?>

Audience

This PHP tutorial is designed for programmers who are completely unaware of PHP concepts but have a basic understanding on computer programming.

Prerequisites

Before proceeding with this tutorial, all that you need to have is a basic understanding of computer programming. Knowledge of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and databases will be an added advantage.