PHP is a server-side scripting language primarily used for web development. Created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994, PHP originally stood for “Personal Home Page,” but now it stands for “Hypertext Preprocessor.” PHP’s simplicity and ease of integration with HTML make it popular for building dynamic websites and web applications.
PHP is embedded directly into HTML code, allowing developers to create dynamic content, interact with databases, and handle forms easily. It is compatible with various web servers and operating systems, making it widely accessible.
One of PHP’s strengths is its extensive standard library, which provides numerous built-in functions for tasks like string manipulation, file handling, and database access. Additionally, PHP supports a wide range of databases, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite, making it suitable for building database-driven websites.
For example, consider a simple PHP script to display the current date:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>PHP Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Today’s Date</h1>
<?php
echo “Today is ” . date(“Y-m-d”) . “.”;
?>
</body>
</html>
In this example, PHP code is embedded within HTML tags, allowing the server to execute the PHP code and generate dynamic content before sending the page to the client’s browser.
Overall, PHP’s simplicity, flexibility, and strong community support have made it a popular choice for web development projects of all sizes.
PHP – Explained In 200 Words
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