Before you start working with PHP, I consider it important to discuss what environment we need to have available for testing and start building our first PHP pages. Thus, this input we to commit to:
- Getting a web server with PHP.
- recommended tools for editing PHP pages.
All references to do with PHP in the blog are to be understood on the 4.x version of PHP. The 5.x version has some substantial changes (in both programming philosophy as deprecated functions) and do not guarantee that the examples to work on that version.
Let's start by seeing what we need to have installed on your computer if you want to work with PHP. If you remember the previous blog entry, PHP is a server-side language, could understand it as a processor that receives a PHP code and returns a flat HTML page (meaning by "flat" that display of that page is immutable, you'll always see the same look and content within the page.) So our team will need to have installed a language processor that server.
There are basically two options:
1) Install on your computer as internet web server that "understand" PHP.
2) Open up an account on an internet server that allows web hosting with PHP.
If we want to start working NOW to PHP and / or we plan to publish our Web site, it is best to have an outer housing (ie a web server), since we will have a name for our website, a place to put our PHP and, generally, a MySQL database with sufficient permissions to connect to our PHP (we'll see how).
If you just want to test your PHP pages PC without being loaded into an external server or information on the Internet, you have no choice but to move into your computer the following components:
- An Apache server (1.3.x or 2.x)
- A processor PHP 4.x which then integrates with your Apache.
- (optional) A database server MySQL.
In Windows you can have all this and installing the program bajándote PHPTriad (http://sourceforge.net/projects/phptriad/) or alternative similar as FoxServ. In Unix / Linux have no choice but to do it yourself step by step (there are many online tutorials about it, just to shop around). PHPTriad installation is simple, the only downside is the configuration of MySQL is not too complex. If you go for this option and you get stuck or have problems, coméntamelo and help you in any way possible.
If you just want to have an outer housing (it is customary to refer to "Holidays" by its English equivalent, hosting) there are many internet web sites as you can provide. For example:
- www.host.sk
- www.iespana.es
- miarroba.com
- etc. For
Usually all you are offering the same:
- A maximum space hosting for PHP and images (between 10 and 100MB), with FTP access to manage the files you post (and / or a web interface to do so, as it offers host.sk)
- A connection to MySQL database with a web interface to manage it (the web interface is called PHPMyAdmin and also have available if you have installed locally PHPTriad).
is not the purpose of the blog explaining how to make an FTP connection to transfer files so they will not go into details, but as always, any questions you may have coméntamela and try to resolve it.
Well, where we place our PHP. Now the question is how do I create a PHP?. Like any programming language, third generation, a PHP page consists of text instructions, so the simplest editor (notepad of windows for example) serves to create or edit a PHP. However, there are tools on the market (some commercial, some free) that we can greatly facilitate the work. I recommend you have one of these two (or both):
- Crimson Editor (http://www.crimsoneditor.com/) is a completely free powerful editor for various programming languages \u200b\u200b(C, C + +, HTML, PHP, ...). The great advantage of this editor on the Windows Notepad is that it uses combinations of colors to distinguish the different "brands" that use special programming languages \u200b\u200b(this is the start and end blocks, the reserved words, HTML tags, etc etc etc) so the display and modification of code does more clear and simple.
- Dreamweaver (http://www.adobe.com/es/products/dreamweaver/) is, in my opinion, the most potent editor. It's actually a 4GL (fourth generation language) because it allows code injection "prefabricated" (ie standard modules that the program meets and saves you write many lines of code) and offers an environment visual programming websites (you can see the resulting page as the designs). On the contrary, it is not free (that is, it is quite expensive) so if you do not have enough money to buy a license, it is best to use a free alternative (though not nearly as powerful) as the Crimson editor.
If you have an installation of Office on your computer you can use FrontPage, which although more focused on Microsoft technologies (ASP web pages) at least you can provide a visual environment for the static pages that you design (ie The part that is made with HTML and PHP does not need).
In the next post we will create our PHP first and discuss the use and types of variables in PHP.
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