St.

Mary’s University
Faculty of Informatics
INSY431

Internet Programming II

Server-Side-Scripting

Server Side Programming with PHP

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Chapter One
 What we'll cover
• Introduction to PHP
• Installation of PHP
• PHP Basics
• PHP Function
• OOP in PHP
• PHP and MySQL
• Arrays
• Sessions
• Advanced concepts in PHP
– Working with Files
– Cookies and Sessions

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 Introduction to PHP
What You Should Already Know
• Before you continue you should have a basic understanding
of the following:
– HTML
– CSS
– JavaScript
What is PHP?
• PHP is an acronym for "PHP Hypertext Preprocessor“
• PHP is a server scripting language, and is a powerful tool for
making dynamic and interactive Web pages quickly
• PHP is a widely-used, open source scripting language
• PHP scripts are executed on the server
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 Intro….
What is a PHP File?
• PHP files can contain text, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP code
• PHP code are executed on the server, and the result is returned to the
browser as plain HTML
• PHP files have extension ".php"
What Can PHP Do?
• PHP can generate dynamic page content
• PHP can create, open, read, write, and close files on the server
• PHP can collect form data
• PHP can send and receive cookies
• PHP can add, delete, modify data in your database
• PHP can restrict users to access some pages on your website
• PHP can encrypt data
• With PHP you are not limited to output HTML. You can output images, PDF
files, and even Flash movies. You can also output any text, such as XHTML
and XML. 6
 Intro….
Why PHP?
• PHP runs on various platforms (Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac OS X, etc.)
• PHP is compatible with almost all servers used today (Apache, IIS, etc.)
• PHP supports a wide range of databases
• PHP is free. Download it from the official PHP resource: www.php.net
• PHP is easy to learn and runs efficiently on the server side

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 Intro…
• PHP is particularly strong in its ability to interact with
databases.
• PHP handles connecting to the database and communicating
with it.
• You tell PHP the name of the database and where it is, and PHP
handles the details.
• Major databases currently supported by PHP include the
following:
– dBASE, Informix, Ingres, Microsoft SQL Server, mSQL, MySQL, Oracle,
PostgreSQL, Sybase
• PHP supports other databases as well, such as filePro,
FrontBase, and InterBase.
• PHP also supports ODBC (Open Database Connectivity), a
standard that allows you to communicate with even more
databases, such as Access.
• PHP works well for a database-driven Web site.
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 Client vs Server Side

•Server-side Web scripting is mostly about connecting Web sites to back end servers,
such as databases.
• Server to client: Web pages can be assembled from back end-server output.
• Client to server: Customer-entered information can be acted upon.

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 Database Driven Web Application
•A database web application is an application based on World Wide Web (Internet)
and database using web browser as a client.

•Traditional client-server (2-tier architecture): A client computer handles the

user interface (Access Forms, Oracle Forms, Reports) and a database server stores
the data. The actual functionality (business logic) of the application resides on the
client and/or in the databases

•Web-based (multi-tier architecture): A client computer uses a browser to access

information from two or more servers (web servers, application servers, database
servers) (i.e.) A web server handles web requests, an application server handles
dynamic requests and a database server stores the data)

Application Servers
Clients including web Database Server
servers

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Three-Tier Architecture

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 Software Requirements
• To work with PHP, you need to install a web server, PHP, and database server.
• There are many web servers to choose from; the most commonly used web
server is called Apache which you can download from the internet freely.
• Similarly, for database, there are many options to use; the most popular
database server for web pages is MySQL.
• PHP is also available freely on the Internet.
• You can download each of the above three software independently and
integrate them by configuring Apache and PHP to get them work together.
• Software producers integrate the three software and offer them as bundle.
• One such bundle that contains Apache, PHP, and MySQL is Vertrigo, XAMPP
and WAMP. All are free software that you can download from internet and
install on your computer.
• Once you install XAMPP, WAPP or Vertrigo, you have all the necessary things
to write server side scripting with PHP.

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 AMP
• One of the most powerful development models for the Web
has been the notion of “AMP.”
•

• AMP stands for “Apache / MySQL / PHP & Perl

working together.”

Apache is the MySQL is a very PHP / Perl is a

industry-leading popular general purpose
web server that database that scripting
runs a majority runs on most environment
of web servers operating widely used for
on the Internet. systems. building dynamic
web sites.
Together,
Together, they
they form
form the
the nucleus
nucleus of
of aa web
web application
application system.
system.

www.easyphp.org -> contains the software needed for all three

packages. You can install and configure very easily. 13
 Apache - Benefits
•Apache is well supported - Most support for Apache is free and available 24 hours a
day via Internet mail or newsgroups.

•Apache is multi-platform - Apache can run on virtually any hardware platform (from
PCs to mainframes), and almost any operating system, such as Linux, Windows,
NetWare, Macintosh, xBSD, etc.

•Apache is secure - security holes are rare but when they exist they are discovered
and fixed quickly

•Apache is extensible - anyone can write modules that easily plug in to Apache. If
Apache doesn't do what you want or need it to do, anyone with programming skills can
write the modules you need.

•Apache is database-friendly - you can interface Apache with virtually any

commercial database, such as Oracle, Sybase, DB2, and Informix, as well as free
databases such as MySQL and Postgres.

•Apache is hardware-friendly - Apache generally consumes far fewer hardware

resources that commercial web servers.

•No Microsoft Viruses - Apache is immune to the Code Red, Nimda, and other viruses
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that target at Microsoft Web servers.