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Introduction to PHP as a Programming Language
PHP is a programming language that basically used for developing web-based
software applications. or PHP is an open source, server-side, HTML-embedded web-scripting language used for developing web-based software applications. It is used to manage dynamic content, databases, session tracking, even to build entire e-commerce sites.
/* dynamic content – content generated or altered in real time based on user
behaviour, location or other factors. Session tracking – mechanism used to maintain the state about a series of requests from the same user over some period of time */
It was originally created by a Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in
1993 and released in 1995. He is often referred to as the "Father of PHP." The PHP reference implementation is now produced by the PHP Group. PHP was originally named as Personal Home Page, but now it stands for Hypertext Preprocessor.
PHP files can contain text, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP code PHP code is executed on the server, and the result is returned to the browser as plain HTML PHP files have extension ".php"
Five important characteristics make PHP's practical nature possible:
Simplicity Efficiency Security Flexibility Familiarity Common uses of PHP PHP can perform 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 we can send data, return data to the user. We can add, delete, modify elements within the database thru PHP. Access cookies variables and set cookies. Using PHP, we can restrict users to access some pages of our website. It can be used to encrypt data
Advantages of PHP
It brings many advantages to web development:
Simple: PHP is quite easy to learn and use. It has a vast set of tutorials, resources, and other insights that anyone can use to learn this language effortlessly. Performance: PHP websites typically run very fast (rather than JSP, ASP.NET etc.). It runs efficiently on the server side. Stable: PHP is stable since it has been in existence for a long time. Open-source: PHP is open source and free to use. It means that developers don’t have to pay a license fee to use PHP to develop software products. An open source programming language is thus one in which the source code to the language's compiler or interpreter is accessible for viewing, modifying and redistributing to the world. Download it from the official PHP resource: www.php.net Community support: PHP has an active online community that helps you whenever you face an issue. PHP Extension Community Library (http://pecl.php.net/), which contains hundreds of ready-made widgets and extensions that developers can use to painlessly add new functionality to PHP. Using these widgets is often a more time- and cost- efficient alternative to rolling your own code. Flexible: Since It is a dynamically typed language, there are no hard rules on how to build features using it. Third-Party Application Support: It supports all the widely used databases, including MySQL, ODBC, SQLite etc. Secured: It provides us a secure platform for developing websites as it has multiple security levels. Portability: PHP runs on various platforms (Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, etc.) Compatibility: It is compatible with almost all servers used today (Apache, IIS, etc.) Supports many Protocols: PHP supports a large number of major protocols such as POP3, IMAP, and LDAP. Extensible: Extensible architecture of PHP enables developers to easily add support for new technologies to the language through modular extensions.
Applications of PHP Server-side web development: It is a development where the program runs on server dealing with the generation of content of web page. Content Management Systems (CMS): It is a framework already designed by other programmers and coders on which you can either contribute your knowledge and skills, or just use those coders’ skills to design your own website or blog E-commerce websites: E-commerce, or electronic commerce, refers to the buying and selling of goods and services over the internet. Database-driven applications: It is a software application that relies on a database to store, manage, and retrieve data. It utilizes a database management system (DBMS) to organize and manipulate data, enabling efficient data storage, retrieval, and management. Web APIs: It is an API as the name suggests, it can be accessed over the web using the HTTP protocol. It is a framework that helps you to create and develop HTTP based services.
History
Ve Relea Supporte rsi se Notes d until on date 8 Officially called "Personal Home Page Tools (PHP Tools)". 1.0 June This is the first use of the name "PHP". 1995
1 Officially called "PHP/FI 2.0". This is the first release that
Nove could actually be characterised as PHP, being a standalone 2.0 mber language with many features that have endured to the 1997 present day.
6 20 Development moves from one person to multiple
3.0 June October developers. Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans rewritten the 1998 2000 base for this version.
22 23 June Added more advanced two-stage parse/execute tag- 4.0 May 2001 parsing system called the Zend engine. 2000
Disabled register_globals by default. Data received over
22 6 4.2 April Septemb the network is not inserted directly into 2002 er 2002 the global namespace anymore, closing possible security holes in applications.
27 31 Dece Introduced the command-line interface (CLI), to 4.3 March mber supplement the CGI. 2005 2002
4.4 11 7 August Fixed a memory corruption bug, which required breaking
July binary compatibility with extensions compiled against PHP 2008 2005 version 4.3.x.
13 5 5.0 July Septemb Zend Engine II with a new object model. 2004 er 2005
24 Performance improvements with the introduction of
24 Nove compiler variables in re-engineered PHP Engine. Added 5.1 August mber PHP Data Objects (PDO) as a consistent interface for 2006 2005 accessing databases.
2 6 Nove Enabled the filter extension by default. 5.2 January mber Native JSON support. 2011 2006
Namespace support; late static bindings, jump label
(limited goto), anonymous functions, closures, PHP archives (phar), garbage collection for circular references, 30 14 improved Windows support, sqlite3, mysqlnd as a 5.3 June August replacement for libmysql as the underlying library for the 2009 2014 extensions that work with MySQL, fileinfo as a replacement for mime_magic for better MIME support, the Internationalization extension, and deprecation of ereg extension.
Trait support, short array syntax support. Removed
1 items: register_globals , safe_mode , allow_call_time_pas 3 Marc s_reference , session_register() , session_unregister() and 5.4 Septemb h session_is_registered() . Built-in web server. Several er 2015 2012 improvements to existing features, performance and reduced memory requirements. 20 Support for generators, finally blocks for exceptions 10 July 5.5 June handling, OpCache (based on Zend Optimizer+) bundled in 2016 2013 official distribution.
28 unpacking, new exponentiation operator, extensions of 31 Augus the use statement for functions and constants, 5.6 Decemb t er 2018 new phpdbg debugger as a SAPI module, and other 2014 smaller improvements.
Not Abandoned version of PHP that planned to include native 6.x releas — Unicode support. ed
Zend Engine 3 (performance improvements and 64-bit
integer support on Windows), uniform variable syntax, AST-based compilation process, added Closure::call() , bitwise shift consistency across platforms, ?? (null coalesce) operator, Unicode code 3 point escape syntax, return type declarations, scalar type 10 Dece (integer, float, string and boolean) declarations, 7.0 January mber <=> "spaceship" three-way 2019 2015 comparison operator, generator delegation, anonymous classes, simpler and more consistently available CSPRNG API, replacement of many remaining internal PHP "errors" with the more modern exceptions, and shorthand syntax for importing multiple items from a namespace.
1 1 Dece iterable type, nullable types, void return type, class 7.1 Decemb mber constant visibility modifiers, short list syntax, ulti-catch er 2019 2016 30 30 Object parameter and return type declaration, Libsodium Nove 7.2 Novemb extension, abstract method overriding, parameter type mber er 2020 widening 2017
6 6 Flexible Heredoc and Nowdoc syntax, support for Dece 7.3 Decemb reference assignment and array deconstruction with mber er 2021 list(), PCRE2 support, hrtime() function 2018
assignment ator, improve open 28 28 ssl_random_pseudo_bytes, WeakReferences, Nove 7.4 Novemb FFI – foreign function interface, always available hash mber er 2022 extension, password hash registry, multibyte string 2019 splitting, reflection for references, unbundle ext/wddx, new custom object serialization mechanism
Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation, arrays starting with a
negative index, stricter/saner language semantics (validation for abstract trait methods), saner string to number comparisons, saner numeric strings, TypeError on invalid arithmetic/bitwise operators, reclassification of 26 26 various engine errors, consistent type errors for internal Nove 8.0 Novemb functions, fatal error for incompatible method signatures), mber er 2023 locale-independent float to string conversion, variable 2020 syntax tweaks, attributes, named arguments, match expression, constructor property promotion, union types, mixed type, static return type, nullsafe operator, non-capturing catches, throw expression, JSON extension is always available
25 Nove only properties, first-class callable syntax, new in 8.1 Novemb mber initializers, pure intersection types, never return type, final er 2024 2021 class constraints, fibers 8 8 Read only classes, null, false, and true as stand-alone Dece 8.2 Decemb types, locale-independent case conversion, sjunctive mber er 2025 normal form types, constants in trait 2022
23 Typed class constants, Dynamic class constant fetch, New
23 Nove `#[\Override]` attribute, Deep-cloning of readonly 8.3 Novemb mber properties, New `json_validate()` function, Randomizer er 2026 2023 additions, Command line linter sup
