What You Should Already Know


Before you continue you should have a basic understanding of the following:

• HTML/XHTML
  
• JavaScript
  

If you want to study these subjects first, find the tutorials on our
Home page.

What is PHP?

• PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
  
• PHP is a server-side scripting language, like ASP
  
• PHP scripts are executed on the server
  
• PHP supports many databases (MySQL, Informix, Oracle, Sybase, Solid,
  PostgreSQL, Generic ODBC, etc.)
  
• PHP is an open source software
  
• PHP is free to download and use
  

What is a PHP File?

• PHP files can contain text, HTML tags and scripts
  
• PHP files are returned to the browser as plain HTML
  
• PHP files have a file extension of ".php", ".php3", or ".phtml"
  

What is MySQL?

• MySQL is a database server
  
• MySQL is ideal for both small and large applications
  
• MySQL supports standard SQL
  
• MySQL compiles on a number of platforms
  
• MySQL is free to download and use
  

PHP + MySQL

• PHP combined with MySQL are cross-platform (you can develop in
  Windows and serve on a Unix platform)
  

Why PHP?

• PHP runs on different platforms (Windows, Linux, Unix, etc.)
  
• PHP is compatible with almost all servers used today (Apache, IIS, etc.)
  
• PHP is FREE to download from the official PHP resource:
  www.php.net
  
• PHP is easy to learn and runs efficiently on the server side
  

Where to Start?


To get access to a web server with PHP support, you can:

• Install Apache (or IIS) on your own server, install PHP, and MySQL
  
• Or find a web hosting plan with PHP and MySQL support
  

PHP INSTALLATION





What do you Need?


If your server supports PHP you don't
need to do anything.
Just create some .php files in your web directory, and the server
will parse them for you. Because it is free, most web hosts
offer PHP support.
However, if your server does not support PHP, you must install PHP.
Here is a link to a good tutorial from PHP.net on how to install PHP5:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.php

Download PHP


Download PHP for free here:
http://www.php.net/downloads.php

Download MySQL Database


Download MySQL for free here:
http://www.mysql.com/downloads/index.html

Download Apache Server


Download Apache for free here:

http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi