PHP (Managing and Using MySQL, 2nd Edition)

11.1. Introducing PHP

PHP is a scripting language designed to be embedded into the HTML markup used for web pages. Web pages that contain PHP scripts are preprocessed by the PHP scripting engine and the source code replaced with the output of the script. Indeed, the acronym PHP suggests just that; PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.

Consider a simple PHP script embedded in an HTML document:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC
  "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd" >
<html>
  <head>
     <title>Hello, world</title>
  </head>
<body>
  <?php echo "Hello, world"; ?>
</body>
</html>

When preprocessed by the PHP scripting engine, the short (and not very useful) script:

<?php echo "Hello, world"; ?>

is replaced with its output:

Hello, world

The text before and after the script is HTML; the first three lines define that HTML Version 4 is being used.

You can embed any number of PHP scripts in a single HTML document, as long as each PHP script is surrounded by the begin tag <?php and the end tag ?>. Other tags can also be used to delimit PHP scripts, but these are the most common and reliable.

One of the best language features of PHP is how it decodes user data and automatically initializes variables. Consider an example script stored in the file printuser.php:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC
  "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd" >
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Saying hello</title>
  </head>
<body>
  <?php 
    echo "Hello, $username"; 
  ?>
</body>
</html>

Let's assume that the file is stored in the document root of the web server. If the web server is Apache and the machine runs a variant of the Unix operating system, the document root is the directory /usr/local/apache/htdocs. The script can then be retrieved using a web browser—if it is running on the same machine as the web server—by requesting the URL http://localhost/printuser.php?username=Selina. In response to the request, the PHP engine replaces the script:

<?php 
  echo "Hello, $username"; 
?>

with the output:

Hello, Selina

The URL is automatically decoded. Also, a variable $username, that matches the name of the attribute in the URL is initialized, and its value is set to Selina. This automatic registration of variables is an excellent feature, but one that has security problems in some cases. How to guard against them is discussed in Section 11.4.

Files that contain PHP scripts usually have the extension .php instead of the HTML file extensions .html or .htm. The .php extension is the trigger for the web server to invoke the PHP scripting engine to preprocess the file. This is controlled by a directive in the web server's configuration file and is discussed in more detail in Section 11.2.

Passing variables and values using the URL is one way of transferring data from a web browser to a web server. However, the most common technique is to use an HTML <form> such as the following:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC
  "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"
  "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd" >
  
<html>
  <head>
     <title>Saying hello</title>
  </head>
  
<body>
<form method="GET" action="printuser.php">
Enter your name: <input type="text" name="username">
<br><input type="submit" value="Print it!">
</body>
  
</html>

When this HTML document is rendered by a web browser, the user is able to enter a name into an input widget. Below the widget is a button labeled Print It!. When the user presses the button, the script listed as the action attribute of the <form> tag is requested, and the data in the input widget is sent to the server as part of the URL. For example, if the user enters the name Selina into the input widget and clicks on the Print It! button, the URL http://localhost/printuser.php?username=Selina is requested, and the output of the script is the same as before:

Hello, Selina

11.1.1. A Short Language Primer

This section introduces the basic syntax of PHP. If you're familiar with high-level languages such as C, Java, JavaScript, or Perl, you'll be at home with PHP. The current version of PHP is PHP 4, and some details we present here are specific to this version.

As discussed previously, PHP scripts are surrounded by the PHP start tag <?php and the end tag ?>. You'll often see the start tag abbreviated as <?, but this conflicts with the emerging XHTML standard and should be avoided.

Statements in a script are terminated with a semicolon. Statements can be formatted for readability by including any amount of whitespace—such as space characters, tab characters, or blank lines—in a script.

Comments can be included in a PHP script using the following styles:

// One line comment
  
#  Another one line comment
  
/* A
   multiple line
   comment */

Data can be output with the statements print, echo, and printf. The first two are often interchangeable, but echo has an advantage in that it can take more than one argument. The printf statement is used for more complex output and is identical to that used in other programming languages such as C and scripting languages such as awk. Consider a few examples:

// These are the same
echo "This is output";
print "This is output";
  
// echo can output more than one argument
echo 123, "is a number";
  
// printf can be used to control formatting
// This outputs 3.14
printf("pi is %.2f\n", 3.14159);

Variables are identified by the prefix dollar sign ($) and variable names are case sensitive. Variables are declared and given a type when they're first used. For example, the following creates a variable $x of type integer:

$x = 4;

The type of a variable can change in a script. For example, the following is valid:

// $x is an integer
$x = 4;
  
// Now it is a string
$x = "Selina";

PHP has four scalar variable types: integer, Boolean, string, and float. There are two compound types: object and array. Compound types contain elements that are scalar variables, and their types can be mixed. The object type isn't discussed in this chapter, but here are examples of the other five types:

// $x is an integer
$x = 4;
  
// $x is a float
$x = 3.142;
  
// $x is a string
$x = "Richmond";
  
// $x and $y are Boolean
$x = true;
$y = false;
  
// $x is an array of strings
$x = array("one", "two", "three", "four", "five");

Arrays can be accessed by their numeric index or associatively. Index elements are numbered from zero. Consider two example arrays:

// This is an associative array
$x = array("one" => 1,
           "two" => 2,
           "three" => 3);
  
// This prints 1
echo $x["one"];
  
// This is a numerically indexed array
$x = array(1, 2, 3);
  
// This prints 2
echo $x[1];

Two functions are useful for checking the state of a variable:

// Has the variable been declared?
if (isset($x))
  echo "x is set";
  
// Is the variable empty?
if (empty($x))
  echo "x is empty";

A variable that doesn't exist is always empty. However, a variable that's empty may or may not exist. If it does, it has a NULL value.

Variables are assigned with a single = character, and equality is tested with the double equals (==) syntax:

$x = 4;
  
if ($x == 4)
  echo "x is four!";

A triple equals (===) can be used to test if the parameters are equal and of the same type:

$x = 0;
  
// This is true
if ($x == false)
  echo "$x is false";
  
// This is false
if ($x === false)
  echo "$x is false";

The arithmetic shortcuts that work in many other languages also work in PHP:

$x = 4;
  
// add one to $x in three different ways
$x++;
$x = $x + 1;
$x += 1;
  
// subtract one in three different ways
$x--;
$x = $x - 1;
$x -= 1;

The standard loop constructs are for, while, and do...while:

for ($x=0; $x<10; $x++)
  echo $x;
  
$x = 0;
while ($x < 10)
{
  echo $x;
  $x++;
}
  
$x = 0;
do
{
  echo $x;
  $x++;
} while ($x < 10);

The foreach statement is used to iterate through an array:

// $x is an array of strings
$x = array("one", "two", "three", "four", "five");
  
// This prints out each element of the array
foreach ($x as $element)
  echo $element;

The if and switch statements are the most frequently used conditionals:

if ($x < 5)
  echo "x is less than 5";
  
switch ($x)
{
  case 1:
     echo "x is 1";
     break;
  case 2:
     echo "x is 2";
     break;
  case 3:
     echo "x is 3";
     break;
  default:
     echo "x is not 1, 2, or 3";
}

There is other basic syntax that isn't discussed here. There are also over a hundred libraries that can be used for tasks as diverse as string manipulation, network communications, data compression, and disk access. If you'd like more detail, a list of references is included at the end of this chapter in Section 11.8.

Chapter 11. PHP

Contents:

11.1. Introducing PHP

11.1.1. A Short Language Primer