PHP is the only implementation for website development. It’s a scripting language that modifies HTML content to provide dynamic information. HTML displays static content, while PHP allows for personalized data. PHP is a server-side preprocessor that executes tasks and writes content to HTML code. Third-party developers offer IDEs to reduce coding effort.
You, as a website developer, don’t get to choose which PHP software to use; there is only one PHP implementation in the whole world. A computer called a server hosts your website and responds to requests to provide pages for viewing. A copy of the PHP software is installed for use by all websites hosted on that server. PHP is a scripting language that augments the hypertext markup language (HTML), used to build websites on the Internet. A scripting language is not a real programming language; rather, it modifies the real-time online presentation of HTML content to provide up-to-date and dynamic information to website visitors.
HTML is the language or computer encoding that displays content, words, and images when someone types in your website address. HTML encoding tells the server, and ultimately your computer, what text and images to display and how to show it, for example in bold red. This is the markup part of the HTML name. Hypertext refers to the ability of HTML to provide links to other parts of your website or any site with an address on the Internet.
As useful as HTML is, all HTML website pages are static, meaning that every page always presents the same information, with very minor exceptions. The development of PHP software has allowed pages to become dynamic and has allowed users to interact with pages to provide personalized information. PHP does this with PHP files residing on the server, with website data in the same folders. Inside the PHP file there will be instructions on how to display the variable data.
PHP software is a server-side preprocessor because it resides on the server and fetches the page from the server before the browser, the software that displays the HTML code on your computer, can display it. When a server receives a request to display an HTML page, the PHP program first reads the HTML code, looks for pointers to the PHP code, executes the PHP task, and writes the content to the HTML code. The server then passes the page with both original and inserted content. Your browser interprets both HTML and PHP inserts as HTML.
Programmers from all over the world contribute to the development and maintenance of PHP software. Among the most useful features of PHP is the ability to request information from a structured query database. Third-party developers provide graphical interfaces to reduce the effort of coding PHP, in what are called integrated development environments (IDEs). These IDEs can include debuggers, step-by-step execution, variable checking, and other tools common to software coding.
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