|
In Web programming, PHP is widely used Open Source server-side
general-purpose scripting language that is freely available
and widely used primarily on Linux Web servers. However, PHP
runs on many different platforms and can be used as a standalone
executable or as a module under a variety of web servers.
PHP (the initials come from the earliest
version of the program, which was called "Personal Home
Page Tools") is an alternative to Microsoft's Active Server
Page (ASP) technology. As with ASP, the PHP script is embedded
within a Web page along with its HTML. Before the page is sent
to a user that has requested it, the Web server calls PHP to
interpret and perform the operations called for in the PHP script.
An HTML page that includes a PHP script is typically given a
file name suffix of ".php" ".php3," or ".phtml".
Like ASP, PHP can be thought of as "dynamic HTML pages,"
since content will vary based on the results of interpreting
the script.
Its syntax draws upon C, Java, and Perl, and is easy to learn.
It has excellent support for databases, XML, LDAP, IMAP, Java, various
Internet protocols, and general data manipulation, and is extensible
via its powerful API. It is actively developed and supported by
a talented and energetic international team. Numerous open source
and commercial PHP-based application packages are available.
PHP is free and offered under an open source license. The latest
version is PHP4.
|