PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) — this is an open-source programming language that runs on the server and is mainly used to create web pages and develop dynamic web applications.
Basic information about PHP:
- Year of release: 1995
- Creative: Rasmus Lerdorf
- Wide application: Web development, especially for server-side scripts.
- Last version: PHP 8.3 (as of 2024)
- Syntactically: Similar to the C and Perl programming languages.
Main features of PHP:
- Executed on the server – PHP code is executed on the server, and the result (usually HTML) is sent to the user.
- Works with HTML – PHP codes can be written inside HTML files.
- Works with databases – Can work with databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite.
- Extended capabilities – File handling, managing cookies and sessions, form processing, etc.
- Platform independent – PHP code can run on different platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac).
A simple example of a PHP program:
php CopyEdit <?php echo "Hello, world!"; ?>This code displays the text Hello, world! on the page.
The principle of operation of PHP:
- The user requests a PHP file through their browser.
- The server (e.g., Apache) executes this file using the PHP interpreter.
- The executed PHP code sends an HTML result to the user.
PHP is considered the basis for popular CMSs such as WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and is still used on millions of websites.
