PHP stands for ‘Hypertext Preprocessor’, which is widely used for making dynamic and interactive web pages. PHP is server side scripting language intended to help web developers build dynamic web pages. PHP is the widely-used, free, and efficient alternative to other server scripting languages. PHP is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML.PHP is compatible with almost all servers used today (Apache, IIS, etc.)
The PHP code is enclosed within special tag ‘<? Php‘(Starting Tag) and ‘?>’ (Ending Tag) that allow you to jump into and out of "PHP mode". You can also enclosed PHP code within tag ‘<?’ (Starting tag) and ‘?>’ (Ending tag), but for more compatibility use first one tag. PHP supports many databases such as: MySQL, Sybase, Solid, and Generic ODBC etc. Since PHP is server side scripting language so it is executed on server side not client side.PHP code are executed on the server, and the result is returned to the browser as plain HTML
A PHP file contains HTML tag and scripts which return plain html to client browser. PHP files have extension of .php3, .php and .phtml etc.
Advantages of PHP:
There are lots of advantages and disadvantages of PHP in which some are given as follows:
- PHP is open source software which can be freely downloaded.
- PHP is simple and very easy to learn.
- PHP supports for both structural programming and object oriented programming.
- PHP can be used on all major operating systems, including Windows, Linux, many UNIX variants etc.
- PHP also has support all major Web Servers which is widely used such as Apache, IIS etc.
- PHP have much powerful built-in function.
- PHP also has support services using with many protocols such as: HTTP, POP3 etc.
- PHP is loosely typed language.
- PHP combined with MySQL are cross-platform (you can develop in Windows and serve on a UNIX platform).
- PHP support easy deployment and cost effective hosting.
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