PHP

PHP is a server-side scripting programming language designed for web development.

How PHP works

PHP code is usually processed by a PHP interpreter, which is usually implemented as a web server's native module or a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) executable.

After the PHP code is interpreted and executed, the web server sends the resulting output to its client.

The output is typically HTML, and the client is typically a web browser.

The output might be an image, or some other data; and the client might be some program other than a browser, such as a web search engine.

PHP and HTML

PHP code can be simply mixed with HTML code.

Blocks of PHP code are defined by PHP markers.

PHP Frameworks

PHP can be used in combination with various templating engines and web application frameworks.

General-purpose programming language

PHP is not limited to web development: it can also be used as a general-purpose programming language.

Command line

PHP has also evolved to include a command-line interface (CLI) capability and can be used in standalone graphical applications.

Frameworks

Many frameworks are available for PHP. Some which interest me include:

• CakePHP
• CodeIgniter
• Laravel
• Lithium (PHP framework)
• Slim (PHP)
• Symfony
• Zend Framework

See:

• PHP REST API Frameworks by David Sadowski
• 18 Minimal Web Frameworks for PHP by Alex
• Best available PHP RESTful Micro Frameworks by Gajotres
• Comparison of PHP Micro-frameworks by Xiangyu
• Comparison of web application frameworks

Licensing and distribution

The standard PHP interpreter, powered by the Zend Engine, is free software released under the PHP License.

PHP has been widely ported and can be deployed on most web servers on almost every operating system and computing platform, free of charge.

See also

• General-purpose programming language
• PHP header
• Programming language
• Server-side scripting

External links

• PHP @ Wikipedia
• PHP: the Right Way