PHP Programming Language

Introduction

PHP stands for "Hypertext Preprocessor" and is a scripting language that is used to develop dynamic websites and applications.
PHP is a widely-used open source programming language. All PHP files contain an extension with .php and can be used with HTML as well, to include dynamic content within the HTML Code.
Various platforms support this language and are mostly used with Windows, Linux, Unix, etc.
PHP is not only used to add dynamic content to a web page but also used to content management, databases, session tracking. It supports databases like MYSQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL, etc.

Features and Advantages

PHP supports various protocols such as POP3, IMAP, and LDAP.
PHP can also be used to handle file systems to read, write the files and close them.
PHP can handle forms, i.e. gather data from files, save data to a file, through email you can send data that a user needs, return data to the specific user.
Using PHP you add, delete, modify elements within your database.
PHP can access cookies variables and set cookies within the browser.
Using PHP, we can restrict users to access some pages of your website by sessions.
We can also encrypt the data using this programming language.
Short learning curve compared to other languages such as Java, ASP, etc.
PHP has a large community document and contributors compared to other programming languages
Most web hosting servers support PHP by default unlike other languages such as ASP that need IIS. This makes PHP a cost-effective choice and to use in the current market.
Framework Support, PHP has various frameworks available in the market for the rapid development of web applications.

Disadvantages of PHP

PHP frameworks got to learn to use PHP built-in functionalities to avoid writing additional code.
Using more features of PHP framework and tools cause poor performance of online applications.
The PHP frameworks aren’t equivalent in behavior so does their performance and features.
It is widely believed by the developers that PHP features a poor quality of handling errors. PHP lacks debugging tools, which are needed to look for errors and warnings. PHP has less number of debugging tools in comparison to other programming languages.

Implementation

The only complete PHP implementation is the original, known simply as PHP. It is the most familiar and widely used and is powered by the Zend Engine.
To disambiguate it from other implementations, it is sometimes unofficially called "Zend PHP". The Zend Engine compiles PHP source code into an internal format that it can execute, thus it works as an interpreter.
It is also the reference implementation of PHP, as PHP has no formal specification, and so the semantics of Zend PHP define the semantics of PHP.
Due to the complex and nuanced semantics of PHP, defined by how Zend works, it is difficult for competing implementations to offer complete compatibility.

Characteristics of PHP

Five important characteristics make PHP's practical nature possible

Popular PHP Sites and Platforms

1) Facebook
2) Wikipedia
3) Yahoo
4) WordPress
5) Joomla

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