PHP

PHP is a server-side scripting language for creating interactive web pages. The acronym PHP derives from Personal Home Page, but now it is defined as "PHP: Hypertext Pre-Processor" (see recursive acronym). Unlike HTML, JavaScript and others, PHP is a Server-Side scripting language, which requires accompanying HTML for use in a web page. PHP is one of the most popular scripting languages in the Open Source world.

PHP is often used together with Apache on Linux or on other platforms such as Microsoft IIS on Windows.

The PHP syntax is very similar to Perl and C. [1]

PHP is an interpreted language (like Perl) and not a compiled one (like Java or C). In order to use PHP, the workstation or server must be pre-configured with PHP; PHP will not work unless previously installed.

Databases

PHP is compatible with multiple databases, MySQL being the most popular.

Overall, PHP is compatible with:

• MySQL
• PostgreSQL
• MS-SQL 2000
• Oracle

and many others.

Books

• How to Do Everything with PHP & MySQL, Vikram Vaswani (McGraw-Hill, 2005)

External links

• PHP Tutorial - W3 Schools
• PHP.net - Offical PHP Website.