2 Lesson 0320221107094857

Universidad de Dagupan IT ELECTIVE 03 - Web
Development
School of Information Technology Chapter 3:
Introduction to PHP
Education
Introduction to PHP
PHP started out as a small open source project that evolved as more and more people found
out how useful it was. Rasmus Lerdorf unleashed the first version of PHP way back in 1994.
 PHP is a recursive acronym for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor".

 PHP is a server side scripting language that is embedded in HTML. It is used to manage
dynamic content, databases, session tracking, and even build entire e-commerce sites.
 It 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 large number of major protocols such as POP3, IMAP, and LDAP.
PHP4 added support for Java and distributed object architectures (COM and CORBA),
making n-tier development a possibility for the first time.
 PHP is forgiving: PHP language tries to be as forgiving as possible.
 PHP Syntax is C-Like.
Common uses of PHP
 PHP performs system functions, i.e. from files on a system it can create, open, read,
write, and close them.
 PHP can handle forms, i.e. gather data from files, save data to a file, thru email you can
send data, return data to the user.
 You add, delete, modify elements within your database thru PHP.
 Access cookies variables and set cookies.
 Using PHP, you can restrict users to access some pages of your website.
 It can encrypt data.
Characteristics of PHP
Five important characteristics make PHP's practical nature possible −
 Simplicity
 Efficiency
 Security
 Flexibility
 Familiarity
"Hello World" Script in PHP

To get a feel for PHP, first start with simple PHP scripts. Since "Hello, World!" is an essential
example, first we will create a friendly little "Hello, World!" script.
As mentioned earlier, PHP is embedded in HTML. That means that in amongst your normal
HTML (or XHTML if you're cutting-edge) you'll have PHP statements like this −
<html>
<head>
<title>Hello World</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php echo "Hello, World!";?>
</body>
</html>
It will produce following result −
Hello, World!
If you examine the HTML output of the above example, you'll notice that the PHP code is not
present in the file sent from the server to your Web browser. All of the PHP present in the Web
page is processed and stripped from the page; the only thing returned to the client from the Web
server is pure HTML output.
PHP Syntax Overview
This part will give you an idea of the very basic syntax of PHP and it is very important to make
your PHP foundation strong.
Escaping to PHP
The PHP parsing engine needs a way to differentiate PHP code from other elements in the
page. The mechanism for doing so is known as 'escaping to PHP'. There are four ways to do
this −
1) Canonical PHP tags

The most universally effective PHP tag style is −
<?php...?>
If you use this style, you can be positive that your tags will always be correctly interpreted.
2) Short-open (SGML-style) tags

Short or short-open tags look like this −
<?...?>
Short tags are, as one might expect, the shortest option You must do one of two things to
enable PHP to recognize the tags −
 Choose the --enable-short-tags configuration option when you're building PHP.

 Set the short_open_tag setting in your php.ini file to on. This option must be disabled to
parse XML with PHP because the same syntax is used for XML tags.
3) ASP-style tags
ASP-style tags mimic the tags used by Active Server Pages to delineate code blocks. ASP-style
tags look like this −
<%...%>
To use ASP-style tags, you will need to set the configuration option in your php.ini file.
4) HTML script tags

HTML script tags look like this −
<script language="PHP">...</script>
Commenting PHP Code

A comment is the portion of a program that exists only for the human reader and stripped out
before displaying the program's result. There are two commenting formats in PHP −
Single-line comments − They are generally used for short explanations or notes relevant to
the local code. Here are the examples of single line comments.
<?
# This is a comment, and
# This is the second line of the comment
// This is a comment too. Each style comments only
print "An example with single line comments";
?>
Multi-lines printing − Here are the examples to print multiple lines in a single print statement −
<?
# First Example
print <<<END
This uses the "here document" syntax to output
multiple lines with $variable interpolation. Note
that the here document terminator must appear on a
line with just a semicolon no extra whitespace!
END;
# Second Example
print "This spans
multiple lines. The newlines will be
output as well";
?>
Multi-lines comments − They are generally used to provide pseudocode algorithms and more
detailed explanations when necessary. The multiline style of commenting is the same as in C.
Here are the examples of multi lines comments.
<?
/* This is a comment with multiline
Author : Mohammad Mohtashim
Purpose: Multiline Comments Demo
Subject: PHP
*/
print "An example with multi line comments";

?>
PHP is whitespace insensitive

Whitespace is the stuff you type that is typically invisible on the screen, including spaces, tabs,
and carriage returns (end-of-line characters).
PHP whitespace insensitive means that it almost never matters how many whitespace
characters you have in a row.one whitespace character is the same as many such characters.
For example, each of the following PHP statements that assigns the sum of 2 + 2 to the variable
$four is equivalent −
$four = 2 + 2; // single spaces

$four <tab>=<tab2<tab>+<tab>2 ; // spaces and tabs
$four =
2+
2; // multiple lines
PHP is case sensitive

Yeah it is true that PHP is a case sensitive language. Try out following example −
<html>
<body>
<?php
$capital = 67;
print("Variable capital is $capital<br>");
print("Variable CaPiTaL is $CaPiTaL<br>");
?>
</body>
</html>
This will produce the following result −
Variable capital is 67
Variable CaPiTaL is
Statements are expressions terminated by semicolons

A statement in PHP is any expression that is followed by a semicolon (;).Any sequence of valid
PHP statements that is enclosed by the PHP tags is a valid PHP program. Here is a typical
statement in PHP, which in this case assigns a string of characters to a variable called $greeting
−
$greeting = "Welcome to PHP!";
Expressions are combinations of tokens

The smallest building blocks of PHP are the indivisible tokens, such as numbers (3.14159),
strings (.two.), variables ($two), constants (TRUE), and the special words that make up the
syntax of PHP itself like if, else, while, for and so forth
Braces make blocks

Although statements cannot be combined like expressions, you can always put a sequence of
statements anywhere a statement can go by enclosing them in a set of curly braces.
Here both statements are equivalent −
if (3 == 2 + 1)
print("Good - I haven't totally lost my mind.<br>");
if (3 == 2 + 1) {
print("Good - I haven't totally");
print("lost my mind.<br>");
}
Running PHP Script from Command Prompt

Yes you can run your PHP script on your command prompt. Assuming you have following
content in test.php file
<?php
echo "Hello PHP!!!!!";
?>
Now run this script as command prompt as follows −
$ php test.php
It will produce the following result −
Hello PHP!!!!!
PHP Variable Types

The main way to store information in the middle of a PHP program is by using a variable.
Here are the most important things to know about variables in PHP.
 All variables in PHP are denoted with a leading dollar sign ($).
 The value of a variable is the value of its most recent assignment.
 Variables are assigned with the = operator, with the variable on the left-hand side
and the expression to be evaluated on the right.
 Variables can, but do not need, to be declared before assignment.
 Variables in PHP do not have intrinsic types - a variable does not know in
advance whether it will be used to store a number or a string of characters.
 Variables used before they are assigned have default values.
 PHP does a good job of automatically converting types from one to another when
necessary.
 PHP variables are Perl-like.
PHP has a total of eight data types which we use to construct our variables −
 Integers − are whole numbers, without a decimal point, like 4195.
 Doubles − are floating-point numbers, like 3.14159 or 49.1.
 Booleans − have only two possible values either true or false.
 NULL − is a special type that only has one value: NULL.
 Strings − are sequences of characters, like 'PHP supports string operations.'
 Arrays − are named and indexed collections of other values.
 Objects − are instances of programmer-defined classes, which can package up both
other kinds of values and functions that are specific to the class.
 Resources − are special variables that hold references to resources external to PHP
(such as database connections).
The first five are simple types, and the next two (arrays and objects) are compound - the
compound types can package up other arbitrary values of arbitrary type, whereas the simple
types cannot.
Integers
They are whole numbers, without a decimal point, like 4195. They are the simplest type.They
correspond to simple whole numbers, both positive and negative. Integers can be assigned to
variables, or they can be used in expressions, like so −
$int_var = 12345;
$another_int = -12345 + 12345;
Integer can be in decimal (base 10), octal (base 8), and hexadecimal (base 16) format. Decimal
format is the default, octal integers are specified with a leading 0, and hexadecimals have a
leading 0x.
For most common platforms, the largest integer is (2**31 . 1) (or 2,147,483,647), and the
smallest (most negative) integer is . (2**31 . 1) (or .2,147,483,647).
Doubles
They like 3.14159 or 49.1. By default, doubles print with the minimum number of decimal places
needed. For example, the code −
<?php
$many = 2.2888800;
$many_2 = 2.2111200;
$few = $many + $many_2;
print("$many + $many_2 = $few <br>");

?>
It produces the following browser output −
2.28888 + 2.21112 = 4.5
Boolean
They have only two possible values either true or false. PHP provides a couple of constants
especially for use as Booleans: TRUE and FALSE, which can be used like so −
if (TRUE)
print("This will always print<br>");
else
print("This will never print<br>");
Interpreting other types as Booleans

Here are the rules for determine the "truth" of any value not already of the Boolean type −
 If the value is a number, it is false if exactly equal to zero and true otherwise.
 If the value is a string, it is false if the string is empty (has zero characters) or is the
string "0", and is true otherwise.
 Values of type NULL are always false.
 If the value is an array, it is false if it contains no other values, and it is true otherwise.
For an object, containing a value means having a member variable that has been
assigned a value.
 Valid resources are true (although some functions that return resources when they are
successful will return FALSE when unsuccessful).
 Don't use double as Booleans.
Each of the following variables has the truth value embedded in its name when it is used in a
Boolean context.
$true_num = 3 + 0.14159;
$true_str = "Tried and true"
$true_array[49] = "An array element";
$false_array = array();
$false_null = NULL;
$false_num = 999 - 999;
$false_str = "";
NULL
NULL is a special type that only has one value: NULL. To give a variable the NULL value,
simply assign it like this −
$my_var = NULL;
The special constant NULL is capitalized by convention, but actually it is case insensitive; you
could just as well have typed −
$my_var = null;
A variable that has been assigned NULL has the following properties −
 It evaluates to FALSE in a Boolean context.
 It returns FALSE when tested with IsSet() function.
Strings
They are sequences of characters, like "PHP supports string operations". Following are valid
examples of string
$string_1 = "This is a string in double quotes";

$string_2 = "This is a somewhat longer, singly quoted string";
$string_39 = "This string has thirty-nine characters";
$string_0 = ""; // a string with zero characters
Singly quoted strings are treated almost literally, whereas doubly quoted strings replace
variables with their values as well as specially interpreting certain character sequences.
<?php
$variable = "name";
$literally = 'My $variable will not print!';
print($literally);
print "<br>";
$literally = "My $variable will print!";

print($literally);
?>
This will produce following result −

My $variable will not print!\n
My name will print
There are no artificial limits on string length - within the bounds of available memory, you ought
to be able to make arbitrarily long strings.
Strings that are delimited by double quotes (as in "this") are preprocessed in both the following
two ways by PHP −
 Certain character sequences beginning with backslash (\) are replaced with special
characters
 Variable names (starting with $) are replaced with string representations of their values.
The escape-sequence replacements are −

 \n is replaced by the newline character
 \r is replaced by the carriage-return character
 \t is replaced by the tab character
 \$ is replaced by the dollar sign itself ($)
 \" is replaced by a single double-quote (")
 \\ is replaced by a single backslash (\)
Here Document
You can assign multiple lines to a single string variable using here document −
<?php
$channel =<<<_XML_
<channel>
<title>What's For Dinner</title>
<link>http://menu.example.com/ </link>
<description>Choose what to eat tonight.</description>
</channel>
_XML_;
echo <<<END
This uses the "here document" syntax to output multiple lines with variable
interpolation. Note that the here document terminator must appear on a line with
just a semicolon. no extra whitespace!
END;
print $channel;
?>
This will produce following result −
This uses the "here document" syntax to output

multiple lines with variable interpolation. Note
that the here document terminator must appear on a
line with just a semicolon. no extra whitespace!
<channel>
<title>What's For Dinner<title>
<link>http://menu.example.com/<link>
<description>Choose what to eat tonight.</description>
Variable Scope
Scope can be defined as the range of availability a variable has to the program in which it is
declared. PHP variables can be one of four scope types −
 Local variables
 Function parameters
 Global variables
 Static variables
Variable Naming
Rules for naming a variable is −
 Variable names must begin with a letter or underscore character.
 A variable name can consist of numbers, letters, underscores but you cannot use
characters like + , - , % , ( , ) . & , etc
There is no size limit for variables.

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Universidad de Dagupan IT ELECTIVE 03 - Web

 PHP is a recursive acronym for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor".

Common uses of PHP

"Hello World" Script in PHP

It will produce following result −

1) Canonical PHP tags

2) Short-open (SGML-style) tags

 Choose the --enable-short-tags configuration option when you're building PHP.

4) HTML script tags

Commenting PHP Code

# This is a comment, and

# This is the second line of the comment

// This is a comment too. Each style comments only

print "An example with single line comments";

print "An example with multi line comments";

PHP is whitespace insensitive

$four = 2 + 2; // single spaces

PHP is case sensitive

This will produce the following result −

Statements are expressions terminated by semicolons

$greeting = "Welcome to PHP!";

Expressions are combinations of tokens

Braces make blocks

Here both statements are equivalent −

Running PHP Script from Command Prompt

Now run this script as command prompt as follows −

It will produce the following result −

PHP Variable Types

print("$many + $many_2 = $few <br>");

It produces the following browser output −

2.28888 + 2.21112 = 4.5

Interpreting other types as Booleans

$string_1 = "This is a string in double quotes";

$literally = "My $variable will print!";

This will produce following result −

The escape-sequence replacements are −

This will produce following result −

This uses the "here document" syntax to output

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