Can someone explain me what php is?

Solixious · 08-26-2011, 04:29 PM

While surfing online, I've seen addresses ending with something like "index.php". But I have very less idea about what they could be. Can someone help me understand what it is and what its use is?

PurpleDragonX · 08-26-2011, 06:16 PM

PHP is a general-purpose scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document. It also has evolved to include a command-line interface capability and can be used in standalone graphical applications. [2] PHP can be deployed on most web servers and as a standalone interpreter, on almost every operating system and platform free of charge. [3] A competitor to Microsoft's Active Server Pages (ASP) server-side script engine [4] and similar languages, PHP is installed on more than 20 million websites and 1 million web servers.

Copied from Wikipedia. If you would like to read more about php, the rest of this explanation can be found here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki?search=php

Winston · 08-26-2011, 09:01 PM

PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
PHP is a scripting language that returns values before the webpage is served to the user. The server processes the PHP, not the client.
For example, lets say you have a page where you want to return random values between 1 and 10. If you were to use just HTML, this would be impossible, as HTML is a static language, which basically means what you give is what you get. But with PHP, this is very easy.
Take the following example ~ this is a .php file
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Example of a random number</title>
</head>

<body>
<p>Your random number is <?PHP echo mt_rand(1, 10) ?>!</p>
</body>
</html>

Solixious · 08-26-2011, 11:44 PM

I guess i get what it is now.. Thank you sirs..

PurpleDragonX · 08-26-2011, 11:49 PM

No problem, if you dont or you have any more questions.. Dont hesitate to ask.. Thats what we are here for Smile

slbmeh · 08-31-2011, 11:12 AM

What is PHP?

PHP is a redundant acronym that stands for PHP Hypertext Preprocessor. It initially stood for Personal Home Page but was changed to fit in with a somewhat standard naming convention of Open Source projects to have a redundant acronym.

Who manages PHP?

PHP is developed and managed by Zend Technologies.

History

PHP was initially a compilation of Perl scripts to do basic web tasks in a CGI. This was created by Rasmus Lerdorf.

PHP3 was developed by Andi Gutmans and Zeev Surawski. They began a complete rewrite and founded Zend as a result of this release.

What does PHP do?

PHP, as the name states, is a hypertext preprocessor. Hypertext, as in HyperText Markup Language (HTML), is taken and preprocessed, processed server side before sent to the client who will process it again to render a web page.

Esentially it is a programming language that is designed with the intent to ease web development and take it to the next level by allowing for dynamic content. Since its initial design it has undergone massive modifications over the years and can be used to for shell scripting or even massive applications.

Source

I cannot guarantee 100% accuracy of this information because it came completely off the top of my head.