What is PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor)?

PHP is an interpreted programming language designed for the creation of dynamic web pages. It is often used in server-side interpretation.

It can be used from a command-line interface or in the creation of other program types that include applications with graphical interfaces using Qt or GTK+ libraries.

What is PHP Programming Language, and What are Its Features and Advantages?

PHP is an acronym for PHP Hypertext Preprocessor, and its old names were PHP Tools and Personal Home Page Tools.

The PHP web development language was created in 1994 by Rasmus Lerdorf. However, its main application is now produced by the PHP Group. Since it is not an official specification, it serves as the de facto standard for PHP.

The Free Software Foundation, which is published under the license of this programming language, accepts this license as free software.

It is a widely used general-purpose interpreted language specially designed for web development and embedded in HTML code.

It usually runs on a web server and takes the code as input and creates web pages as output. It can be distributed free of charge to most web servers and all operating systems and platforms.

It is installed on millions of websites and servers. However, the number of these sites has declined since August 2005 with the use of other languages.

For example, the Wikipedia website was developed in PHP and is the most popular Apache module among computers using Apache as a web server.

Because PHP is similar to other most commonly used languages, ​​such as C and Perl languages, it allows most programmers to learn and build applications in a very short time.

It also allows them to interact with dynamic content applications without having to learn a brand-new set of functions.

Although it makes it challenging to create a web page, it is possible to develop applications with a graphical user interface using the PHP-Qt or PHP-GTK extension.

It can also be used from the command line, likewise, Perl or Python can do this, this version of PHP is called CLI.

When the client asks the server to send a web page, the server runs the interpreter. This processes the requested Script, which will dynamically create the content.

The result is sent to the server by the interpreter, and this is sent to the client, and the process is completed.

It is also possible to create PDF and Flash files and images in different formats using extensions.

It also provides connections to different database servers such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, ODBC, DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, Firebird, and SQLite.

It can also work on most operating systems like UNIX and Windows. It is compatible with the most popular web servers because it is available in a CGI version, Apache module, and ISAPI.

It is an alternative to Microsoft ASP and ASP.NET technologies, Adobe, Java, ColdFusion, and CGI/Perl.

Although under the GNU license, it has a commercial IDE (Integrated Development Environment) called Zend Studio.

There are also IDE applications called Delphi for PHP, and there is an integrated module for Eclipse, one of the most popular IDEs.

PHP History

It was originally designed in Perl in 1994 by discussing a group of CGIs written in the C language by Danish/Canadian Programmer Rasmus Lerdorf to view their resume and save data such as the number of visitors to their website.

On June 8, 1995, Lerdorf was released after combining it with its Form Interpreter to create PHP/FI.

Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans, two Israeli Technion programmers, rewritten the compiler in 1997 and created PHP3.

PHP3 was officially released in June 1998. In 1999, Suraski and Gutmans created the Zend Engine by rewriting the language code and founded Zend Technologies in Ramat Gan, Israel.

In May 2000, PHP4 was released based on Zend Engine 1.0. On July 13, 2007, it was announced that the support and development of PHP4 had been suspended.

On July 13, 2004, PHP5 was released using the Zend Engine 2.0 engine.

This version has the benefits of better support for Object-Oriented Programming, performance enhancements, better support for MySQL, better XML support, SQLite support, SOAP integrated feature, data repeaters, exception handling, and application development with Oracle, which is essential in previous versions with Data Objects.

Since 5.2.X versions are still under development, version 5.2.12, which contains only security updates, was released on December 17, 2009.

When PHP6 was released, development and support of PHP4 ended on July 13, 2007.

PHP6 basically includes Unicode support, clearing operations like register_globals and safe_mode, removing PECL support, object-oriented improvements, adding kernels of xmlReader and xmlWriter Fileinfo, and removing FreeType1 and GD21 libraries.

The PHP7 version was released and enumerated in 2014/2015 after significant discussions. This version was written by Dmitry Stogov, Xinchen Hui, and Nikita Popov.

PHP performance is optimized by reconfiguring the Zend Engine. It showed full integration performance with the increase in new WordPress-based technologies.

With the development of the syntax structure, a more consistent code structure was created, and some characters were allowed to be added.

Hypertext Preprocessor Features

It is a multi-platform programming language and is geared towards the development of dynamic web applications that have access to information stored in a database.

The source code written in PHP is not visible to the browser and the client, as the server is responsible for executing the code and sending the HTML content to the browser. This makes programming in PHP reliable.

It can connect to most of the database engines used today, and it enables projects to be further developed by using a large number of modules.

It has extensive documentation on its official page, which emphasizes that all functions of the system are explained and exemplified in a single help file.

Since it is free, everyone can easily access and use it. It allows the implementation of object-oriented programming techniques and includes a comprehensive and built-in local function library.

It does not require the definition of variable types and can process variables at runtime.

Any programmer can apply and manage any programming or development technique that allows them to write code regularly in their work.

Among the advantages of PHP, one disadvantage is that the code written by the programmer cannot be hidden.