07 Jul PHP Introduction

PHP is a free and open-source server-side scripting language for developing dynamic web pages that are interactive. It’s an acronym for “PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor“. The scripts get executed on the server while running the PHP program. PHP introduction includes the features of PHP, which shows its amazing popularity.

PHP was created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1995 and the current version is PHP 8. It’s quite easy to learn. First, let’s go through the features.

Features of PHP

The following are some of the features of PHP,

• Open Source: PHP is free, open source, and widely available. Visit the official website to download and install it. We will learn how to install it in the PHP Installation lesson.
• Server: PHP scripts get executed on the server. The result is returned in the form of plain HTML.
• Cookies: Sending cookies in PHP is quite easy. You can also delete a cookie in PHP easily.
• Platforms: It runs on multiple platforms like Mac, Linux, and Windows.
• Databases: It can run on more than one database, making the language more useful.
• Output: You can output files other than HTML. It means PDF files, XML, images, etc. can be easily sent as an output.
• CMS: The most popular Content Management System (CMS) WordPress is written in PHP. Other popular CMSs such as Drupal and Joomla are also written in PHP.