PHP

A brief introduction

What is PHP?

PHP is one of the most popular server side scripting languages running today: it is installed on more than 20 million Websites and 1 million Web servers. PHP is used for creating dynamic Web pages that interact with the user offering customized information.PHP offers many advantages; it is fast, stable and secure.

PHP code is inserted directly into the HTML that makes up a Web site. When a visitor comes to the Web site, your Web server processes the PHP code. It then sees which parts it needs to show to visitors (content and pictures) and hides the other stuff (file operations, math calculations, etc.) then translates your PHP into HTML. After the translation into HTML, it sends the Web page to your visitor's Web browser.

Because PHP is a server side technology, the user does not need any special browser or plug-ins to see the PHP in action.
The beauty of PHP lies in its simplicity. PHP runs on just about every platform including most UNIX, Macs and Windows versions.

PHP doesn't use a lot of the system's resources so it runs fast and doesn't tend to slow other processes down. It works well with other software and can be quite fast. PHP is also fairly stable.
PHP offers many levels of security to prevent malicious attacks. These security levels can be adjusted on demand.

Another key advantage of PHP is its connective abilities. PHP uses a modular system of extensions to interface with a variety of libraries such as graphics, XML, encryption, etc. In addition, we can extend PHP by writing the required extensions and compiling them into the executable or we can create the required executable and load it using PHP's dynamic loading mechanism.

In addition to extensions, PHP has tons of server interfaces, database interfaces and other modules available. Of the server interfaces, PHP can load into Apache, IIS, Roxen, THTTPD and AOLserver. It can also be run as a CGI module. Database interfaces are available for MySQL, MS SQL, Informix, Oracle and plenty of others. If a database is not supported, ODBC is an option.

If you are ready to add dynamic content to your Web pages, consider the use of PHP: it integrates well across many platforms and with various software programs.

Improving your business results by using PHP

For instance, PHP will allow your company to:

• Reduce the time to create/update large Web sites.
• Create a customized user experience for visitors based on information that your company gathered from them.
• Open up thousands of possibilities for online tools.
• Allow creation of shopping carts for e-commerce Web sites.