What is PHP?
OR
What is PHP programming?
PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is a server-side scripting language designed for web development. It is widely used to create dynamic and interactive web applications. Personal Home Page scripts are executed on a web server and generate HTML code that is sent to the user’s browser, resulting in dynamic web pages.
History of PHP
PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) has a rich history that dates back to the mid-1990s. Here’s an overview of its key milestones:
- Creation (1994-1995): Personal Home Page was created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994 as a set of Perl scripts for tracking visits to his online resume. He initially called it “php Tools.” Over time, he added more functionality, such as the ability to interact with databases, and released it as “PHP/FI” (Personal Home Page/Forms Interpreter) in 1995.
- PHP 2 (1995-1997): Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans rewrote the PHP/FI parser and created the PHP 2 engine, introducing a more modular architecture. This version added support for custom extensions and better integration with web servers.
- PHP 3 (1998): PHP 3, released in 1998, marked a significant step forward. It introduced a full-fledged scripting language and was renamed to “PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.” This version added support for cookies, sessions, and support for multiple databases.
- PHP 4 (2000): PHP 4, released in 2000, brought major performance improvements and a more mature object-oriented programming (OOP) model. It featured a new Zend Engine, developed by Suraski and Gutmans, which greatly enhanced PHP’s performance.
- PHP 5 (2004): PHP 5, released in 2004, introduced significant improvements to object-oriented programming, including better support for classes and objects. It included the Zend Engine 2, which further enhanced performance and brought features like exception handling and a more advanced object model.
- PHP 7 (2015): PHP 7, released in 2015, was a major milestone. It introduced the Zend Engine 3, which provided substantial performance improvements, often doubling the speed of PHP 5. PHP 7 also introduced new language features, scalar type declarations, return type declarations, and more.
- PHP 8 (2020): PHP 8, released in 2020, was another significant release. It brought major language improvements, including the introduction of the JIT (Just-In-Time) compiler, which further improved performance. PHP 8 also introduced union types, named arguments, attributes for metadata, and more.
Throughout its history, Personal Home Page has evolved from a simple tool for managing web forms into a powerful and versatile scripting language used for building complex web applications and systems. It has played a crucial role in the development of the modern web and continues to be widely used despite the emergence of newer languages and frameworks. The Personal Home Page community remains active, with ongoing development and updates to the language.
Features of PHP
1. Platform Independent
Personal Home Page code will be run on every platform, Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, and Windows.
2. Case Sensitive
Personal Home Page is a case-sensitive scripting language at the time of variable declaration. In the Personal Home Page, all keywords (e.g. if, else, while, echo, etc.), classes, functions, and user-defined functions are NOT case-sensitive.
3. Error Reporting
Personal Home Page has some predefined error reporting constants to generate a warning or error notice.
4. Real-Time Access Monitoring
Personal Home Page provides access logging by creating a summary of recent accesses for the user.
5. Security
While proper security practices depend on how Personal Home Page is used, Personal Home Page has built-in security mechanisms to help prevent common vulnerabilities, such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS).
6. Regular Expression Support
Personal Home Page offers support for regular expressions, enabling advanced string matching and manipulation.
7.XML and JSON Parsing
Personal Home Page provides functions for parsing and generating XML and JSON data, which is crucial for data exchange in web applications.