PHP code is executed on the server.

What You Should Already Know

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

• HTML
• 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 widely-used, open source scripting language
• PHP scripts are executed on the server
• PHP is free to download and use

	PHP is simple for beginners. PHP also offers many advanced features for professional programmers.

What is a PHP File?

• PHP files can contain text, HTML, JavaScript code, and PHP code
• PHP code are executed on the server, and the result is returned to the browser as plain HTML
• PHP files have a default file extension of ".php"

What Can PHP Do?

• PHP can generate dynamic page content
• PHP can create, open, read, write, and close files on the server
• PHP can collect form data
• PHP can send and receive cookies
• PHP can add, delete, modify data in your database
• PHP can restrict users to access some pages on your website
• PHP can encrypt data

With PHP you are not limited to output HTML. You can output images, PDF files, and even Flash movies. You can also output any text, such as XHTML and XML.

Why PHP?

• PHP runs on different platforms (Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, etc.)
• PHP is compatible with almost all servers used today (Apache, IIS, etc.)
• PHP has support for a wide range of databases
• PHP is free. Download it from the official PHP resource: www.php.net
• PHP is easy to learn and runs efficiently on the server side