Web Designs & Languages
PHP
Brief History of PHP
PHP (PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) was created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994.
It was initially developed for HTTP usage logging and server-side form
generation in Unix.
PHP 2 (1995) transformed the language into a Server-side embedded
scripting language. Added database support, file uploads, variables,
arrays, recursive functions, conditionals, iteration, regular expressions,
etc.
PHP 3 (1998) added support for ODBC data sources, multiple platform
support, email protocols (SNMP,IMAP), and new parser written by Zeev
Suraski and Andi Gutmans .
PHP 4 (2000) became an independent component of the web server for
added efficiency. The parser was renamed the Zend Engine. Many
security features were added.
PHP 5 (2004) adds Zend Engine II with object oriented programming, robust
XML support using the libxml2 library, SOAP extension for
interoperability with Web Services, SQLite has been bundled with PHP
Brief History of PHP
As of August 2004, PHP is used on 16,946,328 Domains,
1,348,793 IP Addresses http://www.php.net/usage.php
This is roughly 32% of all domains on the web.
What is PHP?
PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext
Preprocessor or (Personal Home Page)
PHP is a server-side scripting language.
PHP scripts are executed on the server
PHP supports many databases (MySQL,
Informix, Oracle, Sybase, Solid,
PostgreSQL, Generic ODBC, etc.)
PHP is an open source software (OSS)
PHP is free to download and use
PHP
PHP: Hypertext
Preprocessor
Hypertext is just HTML
Preprocessor is important for PHP
Lexical Substitution
Conditions and File Includes
Similar to
C++
Preproces
sor...
How PHP Works
WEB SERVER
Source
File
The purpose of a
web server is
precisely to send
HTML to the
browser!
PHP
Apache/IIS
HTML
What is a PHP File?
PHP files may contain text, HTML
tags and scripts
PHP files are returned to the
browser as plain HTML
PHP files have a file extension of
".php", ".php3", or ".phtml"
What is MySQL?
MySQL is a database server
MySQL is ideal for both small and
large applications
MySQL supports standard SQL
MySQL compiles on a number of
platforms
MySQL is free to download and use
PHP + MySQL
PHP
combined with MySQL are
cross-platform (means that you can
develop in Windows and serve on a
Unix platform)
Why PHP?
PHP runs on different platforms
(Windows, Linux, Unix, etc.)
PHP is compatible with almost all
servers used today (Apache, IIS, etc.)
PHP is FREE to download from the
official PHP resource: www.php.net
PHP is easy to learn and runs
efficiently on the server side
Where to Start?
Install an Apache server on a
Windows or Linux machine
Install PHP on a Windows or Linux
machine
Install MySQL on a Windows or
Linux machine
Note:
You cannot view the PHP source
code by selecting "View source"
in the browser - you will only
see the output from the PHP
file, which is plain HTML. This is
because the scripts are
executed on the server before
the result is sent back to the
browser.
Basic PHP Syntax
A PHP scripting block always starts with <?php
and ends with ?>.
A PHP scripting block can be placed anywhere
in the document.
On servers with shorthand support enabled you
can start a scripting block with <? and end with
?>.
However, for maximum compatibility, we
recommend that you use the standard form (<?
php) rather than the shorthand form.
<?php
?>
Basic PHP Syntax
A PHP file normally contains HTML
tags, just like an HTML file, and
some PHP scripting code.
Below, we have an example of a
simple PHP script which sends the
text "Hello World" to the browser:
<html>
<body>
<?php
echo "Hello World";
?>
</body>
</html>
Basic PHP Syntax
Each code line in PHP must end
with a semicolon. The semicolon is
a separator and is used to
distinguish one set of instructions
from another.
There are two basic statements to
output text with PHP: echo and
print.
Comments in PHP
In PHP, we use // to make a
single-line comment or /* and */
to make a large comment block.
<html>
<body>
<?php
//This is a comment
/* This is a comment block */
?>
</body>
</html>
PHP Variables
All variables in PHP start with a $ sign
symbol. Variables may contain strings,
numbers, or arrays.
Below, the PHP script assigns the string
"Hello World" to a variable called $txt:
<html>
<body>
<?php
$txt="Hello World";
echo $txt;
?>
</body>
</html>
PHP Variables
To concatenate two or more variables
together, use the dot (.) operator:
<html>
<body>
<?php $txt1="Hello World";
$txt2="1234";
echo $txt1 . " " . $txt2 ;
?>
</body>
</html>
The output of the script above will be: "Hello
World 1234".
Variable Naming Rules
A variable name must start with a
letter or an underscore "_"
A variable name can only contain
alpha-numeric characters and
underscores (a-Z, 0-9, and _ )
A variable name should not contain
spaces. If a variable name should be
more than one word, it should be
separated with underscore
($my_string), or with capitalization
($myString)
Operators (1)
PHP has all the usual operators as part
of its Syntax:
Arithmetic Operators
Negate, Add, Subtract, Multiply, Divide, Modulus,
Increment (Pre & Post), Decrement (Pre & Post)
-$a, $a + $b, $a - $b, $a * $b, $a
/ $b, $a % $b, ++$a, $a++, --$a,
$a
Assignment Operators
$a += $b, $a -= $b, $a *= $b,
$a /= $b, $a %= $b
Operators (2)
Logical Operators
And (1), And (2), Or (1), Or (2), Exclusive Or, Not
$a and $b, $a && $b, $a or $b, $a
|| $b, $a xor $b, ! $a
Comparison Operators
Equal, Identical (Equal and of the same Type), Not Equal
(1), Not Equal (2), Not Identical (Not Equal or not of the
same Type), Less Than, Greater Than, Less Than Or
Equal To, Greater Than Or Equal To
$a == $b,
<> $b, $a
$b, $a <=
$a === $b, $a != $b, $a
!== $b, $a < $b, $a >
$b, $a >= $b
Conditional
Statements
Very often when you write code, you
want to perform different actions for
different decisions.
You can use conditional statements in
your code to do this.
if...else statement - use this statement if
you want to execute a set of code when a
condition is true and another if the condition
is not true
elseif statement - is used with the if...else
statement to execute a set of code if one of
several condition are true
The If...Else Statement
If you want to execute some
code if a condition is true and
another code if a condition is
false, use the if....else
statement.
Syntax
if (condition)
code to be executed if condition is true;
else
code to be executed if condition is false;
Example
<html>
<body>
<?php
$d=date("D");
if ($d=="Fri")
echo "Have a nice weekend!";
else echo "Have a nice day!";
?>
</body>
</html>
Example:
If more than one line should be executed if a
condition is true/false, the lines should be enclosed
within curly braces:
<html>
<body>
<?php
$d=date("D");
if ($d=="Fri")
{
echo "Hello!<br />";
echo "Have a nice weekend!";
echo "See you on Monday!";
}
?>
</body>
</html>
The ElseIf Statement
If you want to execute some code if
one of several conditions are true
use the elseif statement
Syntax
if (condition)
code to be executed if condition is true;
elseif (condition)
code to be executed if condition is true;
else
code to be executed if condition is false;
Example
The following example will output "Have a nice weekend!" if
the current day is Friday, and "Have a nice Sunday!" if the
current day is Sunday. Otherwise it will output "Have a nice
day!":
<html>
<body>
<?php
$d=date("D");
if ($d=="Fri")
echo "Have a nice weekend!";
elseif ($d=="Sun")
echo "Have a nice Sunday!";
else
echo "Have a nice day!";
?>
</body>
</html>
The Switch Statement
If you want to select one of many
blocks of code to be executed, use
the Switch statement.
The switch statement is used to
avoid long blocks of if..elseif..else
code.
The Switch Statement
Syntax
switch (expression)
{
case label1:
code to be executed if expression = label1;
break;
case label2:
code to be executed if expression = label2;
break;
default:
code to be executed if expression
is different from both label1 and label2;
}
PHP Arrays:
What is an array?
When working with PHP, sooner or later, you
might want to create many similar variables.
Instead of having many similar variables, you
can store the data as elements in an array.
Each element in the array has its own ID so
that it can be easily accessed.
There are three different kind of arrays:
Numeric array - An array with a numeric ID key
Associative array - An array where each ID key is
associated with a value
Multidimensional array - An array containing one or
more arrays
Numeric Arrays
A numeric array stores each element with a
numeric ID key.
There are different ways to create a
numeric array.
Example 1
In this example the ID key is automatically assigned:
$names = array("Peter","Quagmire","Joe");
Example 2
In this example we assign the ID key manually:
$names[0] = "Peter";
$names[1] = "Quagmire";
$names[2] = "Joe";
Numeric Arrays
The ID keys can be used in a script:
<?php
$names[0] = "Peter";
$names[1] = "Quagmire";
$names[2] = "Joe";
echo $names[1] . " and " . $names[2] .
" are ". $names[0] . "'s neighbors";
?>
The code above will output:
Quagmire and Joe are Peter's neighbors
Associative Arrays
An associative array, each ID key
is associated with a value.
When storing data about specific
named values, a numerical array
is not always the best way to do
it.
With associative arrays we can
use the values as keys and assign
values to them.
Associative Arrays
Example 1
In this example we use an array to assign ages
to the different persons:
$ages = array("Peter"=>32, "Quagmire"=>30,
"Joe"=>34);
Example 2
This example is the same as example 1, but
shows a different way of creating the array:
$ages['Peter'] = "32";
$ages['Quagmire'] = "30";
$ages['Joe'] = "34";
Associative Arrays
The ID keys can be used in a script:
<?php
$ages['Peter'] = "32";
$ages['Quagmire'] = "30";
$ages['Joe'] = "34";
echo "Peter is " . $ages['Peter'] . " years old.";
?>
The code above will output:
Peter is 32 years old.
PHP Looping
Very often when you write code, you want the same
block of code to run a number of times. You can use
looping statements in your code to perform this.
In PHP we have the following looping statements:
while - loops through a block of code if and as long as a
specified condition is true
do...while - loops through a block of code once, and then
repeats the loop as long as a special condition is true
for - loops through a block of code a specified number of
times
foreach - loops through a block of code for each element
in an array
The while Statement
The while statement will execute a
block of code if and as long as a
condition is true.
Syntax
while (condition) code to be
executed;
Example
The following example demonstrates a loop that will continue to
run as long as the variable i is less than, or equal to 5. i will
increase by 1 each time the loop runs:
<html>
<body>
<?php
$i=1;
while($i<=5)
{
echo "The number is " . $i . "<br />";
$i++;
}
?>
</body>
</html>
The do...while
Statement
The do...while statement will execute a
block of code at least once - it then will
repeat the loop as long as a condition is
true.
Syntax
do
{
code to be executed;
}
while (condition);
Example
The following example will increment the value of i
at least once, and it will continue incrementing the
variable i as long as it has a value of less than 5:
<html>
<body>
<?php
$i=0;
do
{
$i++;
echo "The number is " . $i . "<br />";
}
while ($i<5);
?>
</body>
</html>
The for Statement
The for statement is used when you know how many
times you want to execute a statement or a list of
statements.
Syntax
for (initialization; condition; increment)
{
code to be executed;
}
Note: The for statement has three parameters. The first
parameter initializes variables, the second parameter
holds the condition, and the third parameter contains
the increments required to implement the loop. If more
than one variable is included in the initialization or the
increment parameter, they should be separated by
commas. The condition must evaluate to true or false.
Example
The following example prints the text "Hello
World!" five times:
<html>
<body>
<?php
for ($i=1; $i<=5; $i++)
{
echo "Hello World!<br />";
}
?>
</body>
</html>
The foreach Statement
The foreach statement is used to loop
through arrays.
For every loop, the value of the current
array element is assigned to $value (and
the array pointer is moved by one) - so on
the next loop, you'll be looking at the
next element.
Syntax
foreach (array as value)
{
code to be executed;
}
Example
The following example demonstrates a loop that
will print the values of the given array:
<html>
<body>
<?php
$arr=array("one", "two", "three");
foreach ($arr as $value)
{
echo "Value: " . $value . "<br />";
}
?>
</body>
</html>
