What is PHP?
PHP is a widely used, general-purpose scripting language that was originally designed for web development, to produce dynamic web pages. It can be embedded into HTML and generally runs on a web server, which needs to be configured to process PHP code and create web page content from it. It can be deployed on most web servers and on almost every operating system and platform free of charge. PHP is installed on over 20 million websites and 1 million web servers.
PHP was originally created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1995 and has been in continuous development ever since. The main implementation of PHP is now produced by The PHP Group and serves as the de facto standard for PHP as there is no formal specification. PHP is free software released under the PHP License, which is incompatible with the GNU General Public License (GPL) because of restrictions on the use of the term PHP. ( More info... )
PHP.net - The 'Official' PHP Website
PHP Homepage | Download PHP | PHP Manual
Installing/Configuring PHP
- How to Install PHP on Windows - Sitepoint
- How to install and configure PHP 5 on Windows - Web Cheat Sheet
- PHP 4.3 and Mac OS X - Adam Trachtenberg.
Getting Started
- Why PHP? - Jalal Pushman.
- A Brief Introduction to PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor - Phil Davis.
- Practical PHP Programming - Paul Hudson.
- Introduction to PHP - Gez Lemon.
- Easy-peasy PHP - Jim Amos.
- Learning PHP - Part 1 - Thomas Pletcher.
- The PHP Anthology Volume 1, Chapter 1 - PHP Basics - Harry Fuecks.
- PHP Tutorial - Tizag.
Recommended Reading
Learning PHP 5
Learning PHP 5 is the ideal tutorial for graphic designers, bloggers, and other web crafters who want a thorough but non-intimidating way to understand the code that makes web sites dynamic. The book begins with an introduction to PHP, then moves to more advanced features: language basics, arrays and functions, web forms, connecting to databases, and much more. Complete with exercises to make sure the lessons stick, this book offers the ideal classroom learning experience whether you're in a classroom or on your own.
View Book Cover | View Sample Chapeter (PDF) | Buy Now
See also: Learning PHP & MySQL: Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Database-Driven Web Sites
Assorted Articles About PHP
The articles have been broken down into the following categories:
- Database
- File Handling
- Forms & Mail
- Graphics, Imaging & GD
- Miscellaneous
- Object-Oriented Programming
- PHP 5
- Security
- Sessions
- XML
Database
- ADOdb Libraryfor PHP.
- Beginning Database Design, Part I - Joel D Canfield.
- BinaryData + MySQL + PHP - Florian Dittmer.
- Building Next/Prev Buttons for Query Results - Rod Kreisler.
- Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL - SitePoint.
- Database Abstraction - Allan Kent.
- PHP and Working with Databases - Justin Vincent.
- PHP Database Enabled Websites Tutorial - Anthony Awtrey.
- phpHoo (Integrating PHP with MySQL ) - webreference.
- PHP Web Databases - Keith Brown.
- So you want to use a database in your site? - Jesus Castagnetto.
- Storing Checkbox Data In Your Database - Dan LaFlamme.
- Sort Array Keys - webdevtips.
- The PHP Anthology Volume 1, Chapter 3 - PHP and MySQL - Harry Fuecks.
- Using a MySQL database with PHP - Ian Gilfillan.
- Using MySQL from PHP - John Coggeshall .
- Using MySQL from PHP, Part 2 - John Coggeshall.
- Your SQL Database Might Just Be MySQL - John Paul Ashenfelter.
File Handling
- File uploads made easy - Darren Beale.
- Handling files with PHP4, Part1 - Ian Gilfillan.
- Handling files with PHP4 - Part 2 - Ian Gilfillan.
- PHP File Upload Tutorial - Randall Goguen.
Forms & Mail
- Clever forms with PHP - Chris Heilmann.
- Email Forms in PHP - Dan Ball.
- Form Over Substance - Part One - Urb LeJeune.
- Improving Your Form to Mail Script - Christopher S L Heng.
- Parsing Forms With PHP and Sending E-Mail - Blair Ireland.
- PHP Form Handling - David Sklar.
- Sending MIME email in PHP - Kartic Krishnamurthy.
- User Friendly Forms in PHP - Jester.
- User-Friendly Form Validation with PHP and CSS - Jeff Cogswell.
- Using PHP for Date Processing in Forms - Jackson Yee.
- Verify a User's Email Address Using PHP - Joe Marini.
- Writing Your First PHP Script: Feedback Form - Christopher S.L. Heng.
- Working with Forms in PHP, Part 1 - John Coggeshall.
- Working with Forms in PHP, Part 2 - John Coggeshall.
Graphics, Imaging & GD
- A Basic PHP GD Library Tutorial - Neo's Info World .
- Basic Tutorial: PHP GD - Xisto.
- Graphics, Imaging, & GD | Image Manipulation with PHP - The GD Libraries - Mark Douglas.
- How to Create thumbnails with PHP and gd - Christian Heilmann.
- Introduction to PHP Image Functions - Jeff Knight of New York PHP.
Miscellaneous
- A HOWTO on Optimizing PHP - John Lim.
- A Practical Approach to Object-Relational Mapping in PHP - Kieran Mathieson.
- Accelerating PHP Applications - Ilia Alshanetsky.
- Arrays, HTML, and PHP - Tim Perdue.
- Being a PHP Lumberjack - Daryl L. L. Houston.
- Build A Simple Style Switcher in CSS - Laurence Veale.
- Build a PHP Multiple Picture Showcase Using PHP and HTML - David Pankhurst.
- Breadcrumbs for PHP Lovers - jstetser.
- Classes and PHP - Rod Kreisler.
- Classes Tutorial- Mathieu 'CaPS' Kooiman.
- Common Style Mistakes, Part 1 - John Coggeshall.
- Common Style Mistakes, Part 2 - John Coggeshall.
- Custom Error Pages with PHP and Apache - David Sklar.
- Compressing your CSS with PHP - Mike Papageorge.
- Date manipulation in PHP - Allan Kent.
- PHP Debugging Basics - David Sklar.
- Designing search engine friendly PHP pages - stargeek.com.
- Developing Custom PHP Extensions - devnewz.com.
- Debugging PHP: Did You Remember to...?' - Michael M Krznaric.
- Enhance Usability by Highlighting Search Terms - Brian Suda and Matt Riggott.
- Effortless (or Better!) Bug Detection with PHP Assertions - Webb Stacey.
- Faking Dual Inheritance Classes in PHP - Art Lathrop.
- FAQ on my Development Infrastructure for PHP - Tony Marston.
- Five Things You Didn't Know You Could Do with PHP - Larry Ullman.
- Generating Dynamic CSS with PHP - Doug Clifton.
- Keeping Navigation Current With PHP - Jason Pearce.
- Making Usage Statistics in PHP - Adam Szanto.
- Modularize your code with PHP's functions - Elizabeth Fulghum.
- On User-Defined Timezones in PHP - David Whittington and Luke Ehresman.
- PHP 4.0 Overview - Zeev Suraski.
- PHP and Regular Expressions 101 - Mitchell Harper.
- PHP Coding Guidelines - By Paul Waring.
- PHP Cheat Sheet - Dave Child.
- PHP Gotchas (Part 1) - Harry Fuecks.
- PHP Intro to Objects and Classes - Tony Light.
- PHPitfalls: Five Beginner Mistakes to Avoid - Daryl L. L. Houston.
- PHP Login Script with Remember Me Feature - JP.
- PHP on the Command Line - Part 1 - Harry Fuecks.
- PHP On-The-Fly! - Dennis Pallett.
- PHP References - John Coggeshall.
- PHP vs CGI - Christopher Heng.
- Pitfalls of Transactions with PHP - Kimberlee Jensen.
- Previous and Next links demystified - Christian Heilmann.
- Random Image Rotation - Dan Benjamin.
- Replacing Perl Scripts with PHP Scripts - Jayesh Jain.
- Smarter Image Hotlinking Prevention - Thomas Scott.
- String Concatenation - Randall Goguen.
- The PHP Anthology, Volume 2: Applications. Chapter 5: Caching - Harry Fuecks.
- The PHP Scalability Myth - Jack Herrington.
- Time to proofread your code: The Checklist - Michael M Krznaric.
- Tutorial - Writing Classes in PHP - Brian Haase.
- Working with Permissions in PHP, Part 1 - John Coggeshall.
- Working with Permissions in PHP, Part 2 - John Coggeshall.
OOP: Object-Oriented Programming
- A Beginner's Crash Course into Object Oriented Programming - John Collins.
- Introduction to PHP Objects, Part 1 - John Coggeshall.
- The Object Oriented Evolution of PHP - Zeev Suraski.
- The PHP Anthology Volume 1, Chapter 2 - Object Oriented PHP - Harry Fuecks.
PHP 5
- Introducing PHP 5's Standard - Harry Fuecks.
- PHP5: Coming Soon to a Webserver Near You - Harry Fuecks.
- PHP 5 Meets XML and the DOM - Adam Trachtenberg.
- Migrating from PHP 4 to PHP 5 - Derick Rethans.
- Three-Tier Development with PHP 5 - Luis Yordano Cruz.
- Why PHP 5 Rocks! - Adam Trachtenberg.
- XML in PHP5: An in-depth look into advanced XML features - Christian Stocker.
Security
- Notes on PHP Session Security - Harry Fuecks.
- PHP Security Consortium.
- PHP Security, Part 1 - John Coggeshall.
- PHP Security, Part 2 - John Coggeshall.
- PHP Security, Part 3 - John Coggeshall.
- PHP Trouble - Noel Davis.
- Ten Security Checks for PHP, Part 1 - Clancy Malcolm.
- Ten Security Checks for PHP, Part 2 - Clancy Malcolm.
- The PHP Anthology Volume 2, Chapter 1 -Access Control - Harry Fuecks.
- Write Secure Scripts with PHP 4.2! - Kevin Yank.
Sessions
- PHP Sessions - W3Schools.
- PHP Session Tutorial - PHP F1.
- PHP Tutorial: Sesssion - Tizag.com.
XML
- Professional PHP4 XML - Luis Argerich, et al.
- Professional PHP4 XML Part 2 - Luis Argerich, et al.
- Professional PHP4 XML Part 3 - Luis Argerich, et al.
- Professional PHP4 XML Part 4 - Luis Argerich, et al.