PHP - Introduction

Internet Technologies & Website Design

PHP Introduction
PHP is a recursive acronym for “PHP: Hypertext Pre-
processor” - It is a widely-used open-source general-
purpose scripting language that is especially suited for
web development and can be embedded into HTML.
PHP is a server-side scripting language, therefore
PHP scripts are executed on the server
PHP supports many databases (MySQL, Informix,
Oracle, Sybase, Solid, PostgreSQL, Generic ODBC, etc.)
PHP is open-source software, therefore it’s free to
download and use.
PHP Introduction cont…
PHP runs on different platforms (Windows, Linux,
Unix, etc.)
PHP is compatible with almost all servers used today
(Apache, IIS, etc.)
The PHP code is enclosed in special start and end
processing instructions <?php and ?> , or <? ..Php
script ..?> that allow you to jump into and out of "PHP
mode."
Simple PHP script
Cont …
PHP code is executed on the server, generating HTML
which is then sent to the client.
PHP Getting Started
On windows, you can download and install
WAMP/XAMPP. With one installation and you get an
Apache webserver, database server and php.
http://www.wampserver.com
https://xamppguide.com/
PHP files should be saved with a .php file extension in
the root directory.
How to access the root directory (WAMP):
www – for wamp server
C:
wamp
www
 Create your project folder under the www directory. Eg. web1
 Save your project files in the folder created (web1).
 Note: don’t delete any files/folders found in the “www” directory.

To access the files in “web1”, ensure the server is

running, then in the address bar of your browser type:
localhost/web1
How to access the root directory (XAMPP):
htdocs– for xampp
C:
xampp
htdocs
 Create your project folder under the www directory. Eg. web1
 Save your project files in the folder created (web1).
 Note: don’t delete any files/folders found in the “www” directory.

To access the files in “web1”, ensure the server is

running, then in the address bar of your browser type:
localhost/web1
PHP Hello World

Above is the PHP source code.

PHP Hello World
It renders as HTML that This program is extremely
looks like this: simple and you really did not
need to use PHP to create a page
like this. It displays: Hello
World using the PHP echo()
statement.
Think of this as a normal
HTML file that happens to have
a set of special tags available to
you that do a lot of interesting
things.
PHP Comments
In PHP, we use // to make
a single-line comment or /*
and */ to make a large
comment block.
PHP Variables
Variables are used for storing values, like text strings,
numbers or arrays.
When a variable is declared, it can be used over and
over again in your script.
All variables in PHP start with a $ sign symbol.
The correct way of declaring a variable in PHP:
PHP Variables

In PHP, a variable does not need to be declared before

adding a value to it.
In the example above, you see that you do not have to
tell PHP which data type the variable is.
PHP automatically converts the variable to the correct
data type, depending on its value.
PHP Variables
A variable name must start with a letter or an
underscore "_" -- not a number
A variable name can only contain alpha-numeric
characters, underscores (a-z, A-Z, 0-9, and _ )
A variable name should not contain spaces. If a
variable name is more than one word, it should be
separated with an underscore ($my_string) or with
capitalization ($myString)
PHP Concatenation
The concatenation operator (.) is used to put two
string values together.
To concatenate two string variables together, use the
concatenation operator:
PHP Concatenation
The output of the code on the last slide will be:

If we look at the code you see that we used the

concatenation operator two times. This is because we
had to insert a third string (a space character), to
separate the two strings.
PHP Operators
Operators are used to operate on values. There are
four classifications of operators:

Arithmetic
Assignment
Comparison
Logical
PHP Operators
PHP Operators
PHP Operators
PHP Operators
PHP Conditional Statements
Very often when you write code, you want to perform
different actions for different decisions. You can use
conditional statements in your code to do this.
In PHP we have the following conditional statements:
 if statement - use this statement to execute some code only if a
specified condition is true
 if...else statement - use this statement to execute some code if
a condition is true and another code if the condition is false
 if...elseif....else statement - use this statement to select one of
several blocks of code to be executed
 switch statement - use this statement to select one of many
blocks of code to be executed
PHP Conditional Statements
The following example will output "Have a nice
weekend!" if the current day is Friday:
PHP Conditional Statements
Use the if....else
statement to execute
some code if a condition
is true and another code
if a condition is false.
 PHP Conditional Statements
If more than one line
should be executed if a
condition is true/false, the
lines should be enclosed
within curly braces { }
 PHP Conditional Statements

The following example

will output "Have a nice
weekend!" if the current
day is Friday, and "Have a
nice Sunday!" if the
current day is Sunday.
Otherwise it will output
"Have a nice day!":
PHP Conditional Statements
Use the switch statement to select one of many blocks
of code to be executed.
PHP Conditional Statements
For switches, first we have a single expression n (most
often a variable), that is evaluated once.
The value of the expression is then compared with the
values for each case in the structure. If there is a
match, the block of code associated with that case is
executed.
Use break to prevent the code from running into the
next case automatically. The default statement is used
if no match is found.
PHP Conditional Statements
PHP Arrays
An array variable is a storage
area holding a number or text.
The problem is, a variable will
hold only one value.
An array is a special variable,
which can store multiple
values in one single variable.
If you have a list of items (a
list of car names, for example),
storing the cars in single
variables could look like this:
PHP Arrays
However, what if you want to loop through the cars
and find a specific one? And what if you had not 3
cars, but 300?
The best solution here is to use an array.
An array can hold all your variable values under a
single name. You can access the values by referring to
the array name.
Each element in the array has its own index so that it
can be easily accessed.
PHP Arrays
In PHP, there are three kind of arrays:
> Numeric array - An array with a numeric index
> Associative array - An array where each ID key is
associated with a value
> Multidimensional array - An array containing one
or more arrays
PHP Numeric Arrays
 A numeric array stores each array element with a numeric index.
 There are two methods to create a numeric array.
 In the following example the index is automatically assigned (the
index starts at 0):

 In the following example we assign the index manually:

PHP Numeric Arrays
In the following example you access the variable
values by referring to the array name and index:

The code above will output:

PHP Associative Arrays
With an associative array, each ID key is associated
with a value.
When storing data about specific named values, a
numerical array is not always the best way to do it.
With associative arrays we can use the values as keys
and assign values to them.
PHP Associative Arrays
In this example we use an array to assign ages to the
different persons:

This example is the same as the one above, but shows

a different way of creating the array:
PHP Associative Arrays
PHP Multidimensional Arrays
In a multidimensional array, each element in the main array can
also be an array.
And each element in the sub-array can be an array, and so on.
PHP Multidimensional Arrays
PHP Multidimensional Arrays
PHP Loops
Often when you write code, you want the same block of code to
run over and over again in a row. Instead of adding several
almost equal lines in a script, we can use loops to perform a
task like this.
In PHP, we have the following looping statements:
 while - loops through a block of code while a specified condition
is true
 do...while - loops through a block of code once, and then repeats
the loop as long as a specified condition is true
 for - loops through a block of code a specified number of times
 foreach - loops through a block of code for each element in an
array
PHP Loops - While
The while loop executes a block of code while a
condition is true. The example below defines a loop that
starts with
i=1. The loop will
continue to run as
long as i is less
than, or equal to 5.
i will increase by 1
each time the loop
runs:
PHP Loops - While
PHP Loops – Do ... While
The do...while statement will always execute the
block of code once, it will then check the condition, and
repeat the loop while the condition is true.
The next example defines a loop that starts with i=1. It
will then increment i with 1, and write some output.
Then the condition is checked, and the loop will
continue to run as long as i is less than, or equal to 5:
PHP Loops – Do ... While
PHP Loops - For
 Parameters:
 init: Mostly used to set a counter (but can be any code to be executed
once at the beginning of the loop)
 condition: Evaluated for each loop iteration. If it evaluates to TRUE,
the loop continues. If it evaluates to FALSE, the loop ends.
 increment: Mostly used to increment a counter (but can be any code
to be executed at the end of the loop)
PHP Loops - For
The example below
defines a loop that starts
with i=1. The loop will
continue to run as long
as i is less than, or equal
to 5. i will increase by 1
each time the loop runs:
PHP Loops - Foreach
For every loop iteration,
the value of the current
array element is
assigned to $value (and
the array pointer is
moved by one) - so on
the next loop iteration,
you'll be looking at the
next array value.
PHP Loops - Foreach
The following example demonstrates a loop that will
print the values of the given array:
PHP Functions
 We will now explore how to
create your own functions.
 To keep the script from being
executed when the page
loads, you can put it into a
function.  Give the function a name that
 A function will be executed by
reflects what the function
a call to the function. does
 You may call a function from  The function name can start
anywhere within a page. with a letter or underscore
 A function will be executed by (not a number)
a call to the function.
PHP Functions
A simple function that writes a name when it is
called:
PHP Functions - Parameters
Adding parameters...
To add more functionality to a function, we can add
parameters. A parameter is just like a variable.
Parameters are specified after the function name,
inside the parentheses.
PHP Functions - Parameters
PHP Functions - Parameters

This example adds

different punctuation.
PHP Forms - $_GET Function
The built-in $_GET function is used to collect values
from a form sent with method="get".
Information sent from a form with the GET method is
visible to everyone (it will be displayed in the browser's
address bar) and has limits on the amount of
information to send (max. 100 characters).
PHP Forms - $_GET Function

Notice how the URL carries the information after the file name.
PHP Forms - $_GET Function
The "welcome.php" file can now use the $_GET
function to collect form data (the names of the form
fields will automatically be the keys in the $_GET array)
PHP Forms - $_GET Function
When using method="get" in HTML forms, all variable
names and values are displayed in the URL.
This method should not be used when sending passwords
or other sensitive information!
However, because the variables are displayed in the URL, it
is possible to bookmark the page. This can be useful in some
cases.
The get method is not suitable for large variable values; the
value cannot exceed 100 chars.
PHP Forms - $_POST Function
The built-in $_POST function is used to collect values
from a form sent with method="post".
Information sent from a form with the POST method
is invisible to others and has no limits on the amount
of information to send.
Note: However, there is an 8 Mb max size for the
POST method, by default (can be changed by setting
the post_max_size in the php.ini file).
PHP Forms - $_POST Function

And here is what the code of action.php might look like:

PHP Forms - $_POST Function
Apart from htmlspecialchars() and (int), it should be
obvious what this does. htmlspecialchars() makes sure
any characters that are special in html are properly
encoded so people can't inject HTML tags or Javascript
into your page.
For the age field, since we know it is a number, we can
just convert it to an integer which will automatically get
rid of any stray characters. The $_POST['name'] and
$_POST['age'] variables are automatically set for you by
PHP.
PHP Forms - $_POST Function
When to use method="post"?
Information sent from a form with the POST method
is invisible to others and has no limits on the amount
of information to send.
However, because the variables are not displayed in
the URL, it is not possible to bookmark the page.