vivek1 asked:


A couple of months ago, I knew almost nothing about PHP, only that is was a programming language that I needed to learn. Today, my whole site relies upon PHP and I have gained the confidence that almost anything is possible using PHP. I accomplished this achievement using methods that I will describe in this article.

Set Small Goals That You Can Achieve

One of the most destructive things a programmer can do is to try to develop an extensive program or complicated website all at once. When I started to create my new site, I began with a simple goal–to make a members’ area that users could log into and out from. I didn’t decide what features the members area would have, I just wanted to successfully code the restricted area. I made a very simple form of registration–a database for users and the PHP functions that were required to transfer the data to the MySQL database. It was not a ‘mission impossible’ goal, but it was something that I knew I could accomplish and then I could move on to the next goal.

At that point I determined how to secure the data that was entered by users in the form. Keeping in mind that hackers might try to mess up my database by abusing the auto-registration or filling it with spam, I decided to make a simple security key using an image. The user is required to enter the text from the image in order to prevent spam/robotic registrations.

My next task was to decide how people can login and logout and how to validate the form to make sure someone did not enter garbage data in the email field. Then I needed to figure out how to send an email when the user finished the registration process. This was needed in order to make sure that the user entered a valid email.

After I worked out the features mentioned above, I started to think about my next task. I decided to allow members to post their own tutorials on the site and store them in the MySQL database. I wanted to be able to:

- rate these tutorials

- create a profile for each user

- allow users to comment on several pages

- allow users to search through these areas

- integrate the JavaScript with the PHP code

The PHP code along with the JavaScript provided me with dynamic content, which enabled me to insert the new tutorial titles into a JavaScript drop down menu. I improved the method I used for rating to use “Asynchronous JavaScript and XML”, commonly referred to as AJAX, so the page would not need to be reloaded if user rated a tutorial or profile.

The Internet Is a PHP Developer’s Friend

Even if you don’t have any PHP manuals or books, if you’re reading this article, you’re in luck! Internet search engines, discussion forums and the PHP manuals located at www.php.net can be your best tools. The first place I look for any PHP function syntax or implementation methods is at the PHP manual site mentioned above. Then I try out the PHP code myself, and if I haven’t found what I need or am faced with a problem, I use search engines or forums to find the answer to my problem.

Keep in mind that by searching the discussion forums, I have also found some very complicated solutions to problems that I was able to solve in a much simpler manner. Nevertheless, the forum posts can provide you with an idea of what is going on with your code, or what you need to do to accomplish your goal.

One of the issues I faced that took a lot of time was when I made the security key for my site. An instance of PHP was mysteriously running twice, so the key that was shown as an image to the user was different from the actual key that was sent to the PHP form processing page. This issue was occuring only with the Mozilla browser. I didn’t know at the initially that PHP was running twice and I didn’t suspect that it was related to the browser until I searched online and found some posts in forums from folks that had similar problems. They explained that Mozilla requests HTML and images using separate requests. Using this info, I was able to come up with a working solution.

Everything You Want, You Must Code

While you do not want to use other developers’ code, you can certainly learn from their work. If you depend on using other programmers’ work, it will only take you longer to learn the tricks of the trade, so to speak. For example, if I had used the open source forums as a tool for creating my tutorial submission mechanism, I would have ended up not knowing how to store the caret in a form’s textarea.

Hack Your Own Site

Security issues are very important for any developer, even for the most rudamentary applications. For instance, you do not want to wake up one morning to find your site’s guestbook full of junk and **** advertisements.

If there is any possibility of an application not working properly, your site has a flaw. One of the best things about PHP is that it is a server side language, which means that users will not be able to see the code directly–things will work behind the scenes. Conversely, if you write bad code, you might inevitably allow your users to really mess things up on your site. For instance, you would never want to allow the transfer of a variable that is entered through a form directly to your database. You should use htmlspecialchars to avoid allowing someone to add malicious code to your database.

Interactive Site?

These days, to be topical, sites have to be flexible and interact with their visitors. The best way to create some interaction is to mix JavaScript and PHP and let these “teammates” work together. One of the most promising new technologies is AJAX, which does just that. I recently started to use AJAX on my site. It is easy, fast and saves users from waiting for your page to reload again just to post a comment (or rate a tutorial, in my case). Because PHP is a server-side language, you only need to reload the page to pass a variable. Using XmlHttpRequest or other Ajax methods with JavaScript, however, you can communicate with the server in the background and bring the results back to the user without having to reload anything.

Conclusion

Although I am still learning PHP, by using the techniques I mentioned above, I was able to create my own interactive website. I continue to add to my site, and my knowledge of PHP increases with each new feature I add. I encourage you to begin your own journey into PHP programming–you won’t be sorry.

Levi Reiss asked:


PHP is the most widely used web scripting language. This great software enables even relatively inexperienced programmers to develop dynamic web sites for virtually any web application. In a nutshell that’s why you should learn it. Don’t let anyone tell you that learning PHP is a piece of cake. Like any other programming language, mastering PHP is not a simple task. In spite of any promises, you won’t become a master in 48 hours. So let’s take a closer look at why you should make the commitment to learn this language. But first a word of encouragement, you won’t have to master this extensive language to see the benefits.

Let’s look briefly at what you need to develop and test PHP programs. After all, you can’t learn to program without running and debugging (finding the errors in) real programs. The good news is that it is free. You can download it along with other useful applications for free. We recommend that you start with Version 4 unless you are an experienced programmer. Later on you can move up to Version 5. The rest of this article talks mostly about Version 4. A companion article will discuss Version 5.

PHP can run on old computers. For example, I downloaded it, copied it to a USB pen drive, and then copied these files onto a Pentium computer that had been purchased new in August, 1999. I couldn’t access this program under Windows 98 because it didn’t recognize my USB pen drive. But I ran it under Windows 2000 on this computer, which had an Internet browser but no live Internet connection. The entire system required less than 60 Megabytes. Moral of the story: You can run PHP even on outdated computers.

So you can do PHP. Why should you? First of all, it is open source. Free. Why pay big bucks for Microsoft or other competitive products? PHP and its friends are the most popular kids on the block. And it’s popular with a wide range of users from strict beginners to hard-nosed professionals whose careers depend on performance.

PHP integrates well with HTML. You can do most of your web pages in HTML if that’s what you are familiar with. If you prefer the newer XML you should move up to Version 5. It supports object-oriented programming. This article is not the place to explain object-oriented programming, the preferred methodology for developing sophisticated projects. Version 4 is a fine tool for learning the basics of object-oriented programming.

You won’t have to reinvent the wheel. PHP provides more than 100 libraries of programming functions and over a dozen database access functions. Because it is open source scads of programmers are constantly pushing the envelop.

PHP is fast and flexible. Many claim that for technical reasons it runs faster than its competitors including the Microsoft offerings. PHP programs can be moved from the Windows environment to the Linux environment and still run. Word to the wise: If you are ever thinking of going Linux make sure to pay strict attention to capitalization. Linux treats File1 and file1 as two different files while Windows treats them as the same file. If you are totally strict in the use of lower-case and capital letters, it’s very easy to move your web pages from Windows to Linux servers.

Groshan Fabiola asked:


Advance your Dreamweaver Skills to the Next Level with PHP Training in London and enhance your Graphic Design skills with Photoshop Course in London

So now you know how Dreamweaver works and you are busy creating static, brochure-ware web sites. Well, surely that’s not where the learning curve ends is it? Your Dreamweaver introductory training will have given you the foundation to start a career as a web developer. However, if your aim is to take this career as far as possible, there are further courses you must attend. They are as easy and inexpensive as the previous, but they give you even more essential skills. A good Dreamweaver PHP or PHP MySQL course in London represents the next step into building a strong and successful career in web development.

When looking for Dreamweaver PHP training in London avoid the west end and city venues as you will most likely be paying for high costs of rent/hotels. Yes, they might put on a swanky pub meal at lunch but tell me - are you looking for a gourmet meal or are you looking for knowledge and enlightenment that will allow you to buy many such meals easily yourself in the nearest future?

The best type of Dreamweaver PHP training in London will be a course that allows you to take your Dreamweaver skills to the next level. On such a training course you should be able to build web pages that insert, search, delete or update records from a database. You should also learn how to create a registration page, Check User Name, Create a log in page, Restrict Access to Page and Log Out User.

Upon completing a Dreamweaver PHP course in London you will truly master how to develop dynamic web sites.  I’m sure you would like to be able to do that even if you have to go as far as Enfield in the North East of London.

Unlike the introductory courses about Dreamweaver, Dreamweaver PHP training in London requires Dreamweaver skills, because you must first know how to create a static web site to be able to make it a dynamic data- driven one. Dreamweaver PHP training in London is a one day course and for anyone looking to create dynamic web sites it would be a crying shame to miss it.

For those that are more used to hand-coding their web pages and want to learn PHP MySQL there is an upgrade course called PHP5 and MySQL training in London this is slightly more advanced and would take two days to complete.

Do not be fooled by the many PHP  training courses in London that want you to  remortgage your house or take out a huge loan because it really does not have to be this way. Perfecting your web technology skills and taking your career to the next level is much easier than that. If you have ever wondered what path to take in your life in order to have the money, career and lifestyle you have dreamed of, now is your chance to let go of all doubts and find the answer. Within a short period of time and with little money, you can become a web site developer and getting Dreamweaver and PHP training London is the best and most effective way to achieve that.

If the programming side of developing web sites is not your passion, and you are more interested in the visual aspects, then look for a Photoshop course in London to help you achieve your dreams. By attending Photoshop training in London you will acquire the necessary skills for screen and print. In just a couple of days, you will learn valuable techniques in images, compositing and retouching for online production and print.

Most Photoshop courses in London are aimed at teaching beginners or novices, so there are no requirements for previous knowledge. The only skills you must have are good mouse and keyboard skills. Moreover, by attending certain Photoshop training courses in London you will also have access to online support and tutorials, all at very competitive prices.

Starting a career in the web design and development world seems like something rather complicated until you have found the perfect training provider. There are many training organisations whose goal is to turn a beginner into a professional in no time. Photoshop courses in London, Dreamweaver training in London and Flash courses in London have the best reputation in the world for doing this. You just have to make sure you are going with the right one who will not charge you heaven and earth to gain the skills. More so, a training academy that respects its students and itself will not just be in the business for the money but also because they have an unwavering dedication towards taking students to the next level of development and supporting them along the way. Hence, providing not just introductory Dreamweaver training but also an advanced course, such as a PHP MySQL course in London.

Crivion asked:


In this article I will speak about PHP programming language and try to make it clear for every newbie which wants to start learning php. But, for beeing able to start learning this computer programming language, you should start by understand what is this and what is doing.

Well, PHP is a server-side programming language : server-side? means that the code is interpreted at level of the PHP engine installed on the web server. PHP is open-source (free at no cost). Beeing free of charge makes it very popular and I would say easy to use.

Where can be used php? Everywhere on the web, and I think desktop application can be coded too with the GTK feature but I dont know much about it so I will stop here talking about this. On the other side, for the web application development, you can build dynamic websites, database driven websites (for example MySQL, PostreSQL, etc.), diverse web forms like a contact form which will insert the infos into database system or send details entered in the form to a specified email address, etc.

How do you start the ball rolling? Well, please start reading introductory tutorials on php official website, then get a project in mind and try finding requirements needed for this project. This is the best way to learn : by practicing, not just reading tons of borring tutorials.

Once you got a project in mind, you will definitely need a php engine to be able to execute the code. How do you make this? Simply install a webserver like apache, add php server to this and mysql database engine. You’ll find a lot of documentation to help you doing this or there are a lot of ready made packs wich includes, php, apache, phpmyadmin, mysql, etc for example easyphp web server or xampp. They’re free and easy to install.

The second thing is to register at specific forums, where you can get support and help from the php gurus, because you really need fast help when errors will occure, and by the way, trust me you’ll encounter a lot of “strange” errors at the begining, which later will become just a routine.

And lastly, do not forget to get a nice code editor with code colloring, code auto-completion feature is very important too which will make developing faster. My tip here is to use Zend IDE (the php company) which is the best and includes mentioned features. Also, Adobe Dreamweaver is not bad, you can use that too which is nice for html/css client side scripting. I assumed that you already know html at least, it is very recommended to know it to make things clear in programming.

And, for the begining this should be enough for a novice to begin to learn php programming language at the basic level. Later, with the time and projects which are mandatory for progress, you’ll get experience and will advance maybe to OOP (object oriented programming) which is another thing important.

Good luck in learning!

Lina Smith asked:


A PHP tutorial script is a way to learn PHP language. PHP scripting is a powerful computer language for creating flexible, attention grabbing and interactive websites. Once you have learned by practicing in a PHP tutorial script you can script your own websites on the server-side of whatever Internet service provider you are using.

A PHP tutorial script will give you the ability to use the widespread, free, and open source alternative language to others such as Microsoft’s ASP. PHP tutorial script learning is perfectly suited for Web development and the code itself can be embedded directly into the HTML code of the Internet.

The PHP tutorial script will show you how the syntax of the language is very similar to Perl and C two other language precursors to PHP. PHP is often used in combination with Apache, a web server program on various operating systems such a Windows, Vista and Mac OSX. It also supports ISAPI and can be used with Microsoft’s IIS on Windows.

To make best use of the PHP tutorial scripts for learning and then developing websites you really need a basic grasp of HTML, the mother tongue of the Internet and some scripting experience. PHP actually stands for Hypertext Preprocessor and is very like ASP in that you do not need to use your computer capacity to use it as it sits on the server of the ISP yo are working with.

The PHP tutorial script lessons will quickly make you familiar with real PHP scripts that run on the server. PHP tutorial scripts will also let you see how PHP works with

many databases such as MySQL, Informix, Oracle, Sybase, Solid, PostgreSQL, Generic ODBC, etc.

The PHP tutorial script qualification will give you entry into the PHP open source software community where you will contribute to the development of this web design tool. The PHP tutorial scripts and the PHP sotware is free to download and use.

The PHP tutorial scripts will be just like real PHP files and can contain text, HTML tags and scripts. When you script in PHP it is uploaded to the browser as plain HTML but PHP files have a file extensions of “.PHP”, “.PHP3″, or “.phtml”

If you have a server that supports PHP you don’t need to do anything. Simply use your PHP tutorial script knowledge to create some .PHP files in your web directory, and your server will parse them for you. Precisely because it is free, most web hosts offer PHP support.

When PHP reads a file, it picks out the opening and closing tags, which are PHP flags to start and stop operating the code between them. Parsing in this way allows PHP to be linked into all sorts of different documents, as everything outside of the opening and closing tags is unreadable the PHP parser. Most of the time, as the PHP tutorial scripts show, you will see PHP embedded in HTML documents.

Ricardo D Argence asked:


Web pages used to be simple affairs, where everything you needed to do could be done in HTML, there was really one set of rules and one set of expectations. Today’s world is far more complex.

Web pages can be more complex and customers expect more from web pages. Terms like PHP and ASP now compete with HTML when starting a web page and it can be hard to figure out what option best suits your needs.

If you’ve ever driven an import car, you can appreciate the importance of being able to find support that meet your needs, if you’re going to kick the tires with your website and turn it into something exception, having a large community that can support you is critical.

PHP, Personal Home Pages has more support on the internet than ASP - Active Server Pages. The larger user base gives you more allies; more people who can help you develop your own talents and your website.

Another advantage of PHP is that it’s based on unix, giving it more cross platform capability than ASP as increasing demands of Microsoft’s operating systems level the cost playing field between Microsoft products and Apple, this is ever more important.

And did we mention that in the grand tradition of unix, PHP is free, while ASP needs support software that isn’t? For add-ons and additional tools, PHP’s open source has a strong base of free tools, whereas ASP demands that you purchase these tools.

You can find help for your PHP programming from free to paid. Most professional ASP support is very expensive by comparison.

Also, you have to consider the costs associated with a web hosting on Windows Server compared to Linux Servers. For most cases, you will notice a substantial difference in prices.

Not only that, but Windows severs do tend to be unstable and prone to failures, are more likely to be attacked by viruses, Trojans and exploits. Linux servers on the other hand are much more stable and the attacks windows servers suffer in a daily basis are non-existent in Linux.

If you are considering either a dedicated server or a shared hosting, your fist choice should be Linux. I’ve yet to find a problem that can’t be solved using PHP and Linux.

With all this, you might wonder why ASP still is out there at all. Part of it stems from ASP being based on the same methodology that’s used to make macros in other Microsoft products.

People that have invested the time learning how to use macros in Word or Excel will be more comfortable using ASP. PHP is based on C++, a robust computer programming language.

Before this intimidates you, the free tools that exist out there allow for a lot of this to be hidden, until you’re ready to take advantage of the power behind PHP.

Putting it all together, the power, the cost, flexibility, stability and support of PHP is far superior to that of ASP. If you’re going to commit to building the best web page you can, commit to using the best tools you can.

Investing in learning PHP will pay off when you’re able to pop the hood, invite your friends over and transform your web page from a normal, average, page to a sophisticated and highly toned performance page.

Santanu Boral asked:


A scripting language popularly known as PHP, originated in 1995 by Rasmus Lerdorf. PHP stands for Personal Home Page Tools. In just maximum 10 years this language has become a favorite of internet marketers, even small business webmaster with the newer and stable version of the internet.

Why is PHP so popular?

Before PHP, there was Javascript. It does some really cool things like rotate ads, graphics, text etc. But unfortunately it is not tough to readable by the search engines. Who are working on internet, they love PHP because it does all the Javascripts does and everything that does and the turns up on the pages is read and counted by the search engines.

One thing is that, you need to get a script written in PHP and learn how to install a script on the web server. In fact PHP is not software which you can simply download, installed and open on your computer. If you want to import and rotate articles to keep my content sites full of good and search engine. It also should be fresh content. Even you can use PHP to complete this.

Where To Find PHP Scripts.

You can find PHP script at sites that host a listing of hundreds of different scripts. It includes all kinds of CGI and Java. All those sites have a section of scripts written just in PHP, which you have to find some really nice free scripts and some low cost PHP scripts to improve our websites performance and place in the search engines. One thing is that, you would learn to write PHP since there are so many ways a webmaster as well as internet marketer could use the script to help with automation and site improvements.

Lina Smith asked:


Never mind the chicken or the egg. The burning philosophical question of our cyber age is, which came first, the PHP tutorial script or the website? You see the list of instructions that your PC follows when it displays a website on your screen, the software in other words is a symbolic language called PHP. It’s called a language, but it is a language very unlike English, whether it is US or UK or any other kind.

Unlike language as we humans think of it, PHP tutorial scripts are not meant to be heard or listened too or even spoken. PHP tutorial scripts are learnt by people in order to be written and then ‘read’ and operated by computers alone.

PHP tutorial scripts are strings of symbols that operate only as pixels on screen and as digital data on your computers hard disk and on the servers of your Internet service provider. So have you ever wondered what happens to all those web pages, words and images when you move away from the website?

I always imagine them to be like the hologram of Princess Leia in the Star Wars movie. When you open up a website the PHP script leaps to life in front of your eyes and just as quickly reverts to PHP encoded script when you maneuver away from any particular site. So if nobody is visiting your website at any given time does it exist at all? Rather it only exists as a PHP tutorial script. That is to say PHP tutorial scripts only exist in a symbolic world until activated and then they only exist in a different symbolic world as long as you are looking at them. “Help me Obi Wan, you’re my only hope!”

Now you can go to PHP tutorial script websites and learn to write the language of PHP scripts that will then generate websites of infinite variety and designed to your PHP scripting. (Really it isn’t as difficult as becoming a Jedi knight). So hence the question that we began with, (boy aren’t you glad you started this?) which came first the PHP tutorial script or the website?

Am I just contemplating my navel or does all this PHP tutorial script talk have anything to do with real life. Well quite a lot actually. “Search your feelings Luke. You know it’s true”? You can turn a PHP tutorial script into cash and earn a very good living as a PHP programmer.

The online job site oDesk is finding that number of projects for PHP programmers is growing faster than any other freelance sector and the wages paid for these projects are rising faster too. ODesk also report that “overall, PHP demand was twice that of any other programming language. Open source technology, led by PHP and MySQL, is by far the skill set in highest demand today.”

PHP tutorial scripts are better than any other coding platform because it is free. Very flexible and offers a huge support network of other PHP scripters. There is an extensive library of PHP tutorial scripts that can be tailored, are transferable and match to fit almost any web application.

Billy Gee asked:


day is the most widely used back-end programming language used on the Web. PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. PHP is an open source language, which effectively means it is free to use, it’s very well supported with tons of books and online resources and it is the choice language of literally tens of thousands of Web developers around the World.

When would a Web Developer use PHP?

Initially websites were developed solely in HTML. HTML is the acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. Having all the content written in HTML meant that all the content for the website resides on the actual HTML pages. So for example if your company had a 1000 products you would create a separate HTML Web page for each product. This sort of website is sometimes also referred to as a static website.

The major problem with this scenario is that the design and the content reside in the same place so, for example, if you wanted to update all the product prices you would need to edit and update all 1000 Web pages. Not only was this very time consuming but allowing non-Web designers access to the HTML could potentially have very serious consequences if the HTML code was compromised in any way.

The solution was to create a database driven website where all the content resides in an external database. You would then only need to create one product page and depending which parameters were passed from the database, the website would display only the relevant product/s. Obviously this creates a much more controlled environment and a simple task like changing product prices could be achieved in seconds.

As HTML is a static language, it can not communicate directly with a database and therefore Web developers use a programming language such as PHP to feed information to and from the Database. Other benefits of using database driven websites include accumulating information from your users via HTML form submission (new client enquires, mailing lists etc), login authentication (for security purposes), e-commerce (buying and selling goods and services), and managing large volumes of data and more.

MySQL is the World’s most popular database, which over a 100 million copies of it downloaded and distributed. MySQL with its superior speed, reliability, and ease of use is the preferred database used by PHP developers.

PHP and MySQL are a powerful team of tools for any Web Developer.

Rightway Solution asked:


PHP or HyperText Preprocessor is a server side scripting language used for creating dynamic websites. The script which is initially possessed by the server is then transferred to buyer via HTML files. The language is even used for command-line scripting and client-side GUI applications. More importantly, the back-end tool for PHP is My SQL, the interfacing property of My SQL, an online database, which matches with PHP. So webmasters, who want to make their web sites automated, can zero in on My SQL and PHP, to build dynamic websites.

Now coming to the point, the developers at Rightway Solution have acquired the required skills to deliver high-end PHP Solutions to its clients world-wide. The advantages of PHP are enumerated below:

Benefits of PHP

• PHP has been breaking new ground in the outsourcing world, with over 1,000,000 websites currently lapping up the benefits PHP language. Shaking off traditional static image of the websites, the language apparently endows the site with certain level of vibrancy.

• PHP’s written scripts are pretty instrumental in keeping track of the visitor’s activities on your site. Sending out emails to the subscribers, aiding users upload files or images to the site, and driving content on your site dynamically, using databases.

• Small business sites, can utilize PHP to obtain feed back from users on their products and services. The script even aids in creating a form which will allow customers in sending emails to you directly.

• Being a free open source language, the users need not shell out thousands of dollars in licensing fee to acquire PHP. Cost-savings has made PHP the much preferred language over competitors like Microsoft’s ASP.NET and Visual Basic.net and Sun Microsystems’ Java.

• Easy in installation. Moreover, PHP Programs have their base in C & C++ and finds similarity with C++ and C syntax and so it is even easy to learn.

• PHP does not put a load on servers. The code is optimized to make the server’s job easier.

• As much of the processing is moved to the server, collection and use of data becomes more convenient with PHP. Data can be easily stored in databases and used in new ways. Users have access to this centralized data. Web sites can be created by making use of the central reserve much more efficiently.

• PHP gives developers much more freedom to create light, feature rich web sites that reuse common elements while still being connected to extended data sources.

• One of PHP’s primary benefits is a lack of dependence on external programs to run the code. Media files like sound, video and flash require plug-ins to function. Some browsers have the necessary plug-ins pre-installed, but many of the browsers need to download the necessary software to view components of websites. PHP is executed exclusively by the server and therefore requires nothing from the end-user.

PHP Development