Getting Started with PHP

PHP was originally named Personal Home Page, but was then later renamed to PHP: Hypertext Processor which sounds more powerful.

PHP Server Tags

Code inside tags is executed
Only output sent to browser
Client will never see the PHP code (when they click view source on a page for example)
Syntax
- Three variations but all the same (gives same result)
  - <?php ... ?>
  - <? ... ?>
  - <script language = "php"> ... </script>

Other

PHP requires a semi colon at the end of each sentence ;
We use echo to print out to the screen. This is the equivalent to print() in for example Python or System.out.println in Java.
To concatenate PHP uses . This is the equivalent of using a + for other languages such as Java/Python.
To comment in PHP use // or # for single line comments. A block comment is /* ... */

echo "Hello " . "World!"; //Will output Hello World!