Introduction

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Introduction

PHP is a server-side scripting language. It strongly resembles the C programming language, with Perl flavoring thrown in. It is a very easy language to learn.

PHP supports many databases. We will concentrate on MySQL support. You will learn how to compile PHP to add the features needed for use with MySQL and the IMP email application.

Of the four pieces for your project, MySQL and Apache are already in place. When you are finished with this chapter, you will have a general-purpose system consisting of Apache, MySQL, and PHP. You will be able to access tables in the MySQL database using PHP-embedded scripting language in a Web page, and display the results to a Web browser.

GEEK SPEAK: The process of putting code in a Web page for the server to execute is often called embedding. Another term for this is server-side scripting. Microsoft calls its version of this process Active Server Pages.

All these terms refer to the process where the Web server interprets the information or code on the Web page. The server then sends the result of that work to the Web browser. The original Web page is almost never sent to the browser, though pieces of it can be.

A Brief History

Rasmus Lerdorf conceived PHP in 1994. He did some work with the preliminary version to keep track of who was looking at his r sum . The first generally available version debuted in early 1995 and was known as the Personal Home Page Tools.

It was a very limited tool set at that time. PHP's parser was rewritten in the middle of 1995, and became known as PHP/FI Version 2, for Personal Home Page Tools/Form Interpreter.

Starting in the middle of 1997, Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans rewrote the parser. This became the core of PHP. Several other people have contributed to PHP, some of whom are listed in the online documentation.

PHP Worldwide Use

PHP is shipped with every version of Red Hat Linux, and C2's StrongHold Web Server. As of 2000, PHP was being used in approximately 1,000,000 computer systems worldwide.

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