PHP B L U E P R I N T: Tips and Tricks for Building Modern PHP Apps

By David Mitchell

 This book contains proven steps and strategies on how to code in PHP to create web applications. You will learn about the distinct features of PHP in the form of functional codes that you can use in a PHP editor for practice purposes. I have made sure that you'll learn about all the basic and advanced level codes that you will need to crea

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Mitchell
• Release date: Oct 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798868937132

Book preview

Introduction

This book contains proven steps and strategies on how to code in PHP to create web applications. You will learn about the distinct features of PHP in the form of functional codes that you can use in a PHP editor for practice purposes. I have made sure that you’ll learn about all the basic and advanced level codes that you will need to create a web app such as a Content Management System (CMS). As MySQL is an integral part of PHP, I have dedicated a chapter on different statements of MySQL, which you can use to operate a database. PHP is hollow without MySQL because each web application requires a database to channelize user information and store it for future usage.

PHP is not too old; we can trace back its origins to 1994 when Rasmus Lerdorf wrote the very first version. It was built, in its initial phases, from the C language as a means of replacing code snippets of Perl that he had been using on the personal homepage that he had. It kept evolving; however, it was 1995 that he released the very first formal as well as the public version of this language. At this point, PHP had been referred to as Personal Homepage Tools. JavaScript was bound to release in 1996 as a client-side language. PHP’s release at that time as a server-side language speaks volumes about the tremendous growth in the tools of the Internet that occurred at that time.

In 1998, PHP received its third version that was released by Andi Gutmans and Zeev Suraski. The new version had got its unique name Hypertext Preprocessor. This version awarded PHP sizable popularity. The version 4 of PHP came in 2000 and was referred to as Zend Engine. This version elevated PHP to a level that it had never seen before. It removed certain shortcomings from PHP and made it a fuller language. Version 5 of PHP received its release in 2004 with new features such as an improved version of object-oriented programming and better performance. PHP 7 was released in 2014 and 2015. It further updated PHP for a higher level of web development.

PHP shot to fame when the world got to know that Mark Zuckerberg had used it to create the world-famous application Facebook. When dropped out of Harvard in 2003, Mark adopted this language to create the app, and the Facebook app is still using this language at its backend. Facebook has since developed its own language known as Hack, but it is a version of PHP.

The book contains practical steps to help you understand what happens at the server-side of a web application. It will help you go through the ins and outs of PHP and MySQL that generally go side by side in the creation of a web application. I have divided this chapter into 11 chapters to create ease for the readers. Each chapter of the book deals with a unique topic. I recommend that you download and install a PHP editor or open an online PHP editor for practice purposes while you read the book. You can use the sample codes from the book and understand how they work when they are put in an editor. I hope your journey through the book will be amazing, and you will come out as a knowledgeable person.

The first chapter of the book focuses on the installation of PHP on your computer. It is a complicated process. You should give it a couple of readings to understand how you can do it. The process will not be as much difficult on Linux and Mac OS as it will be on a Windows Operating System. I have explained the topic in a step-by-step order. The first chapter is the installation of the webserver on your operating system, and there are many web servers available in the market. You can choose at will. In the case of this book, I chose to explain the most popular web server of all time that is known as Apache. Apache is a brilliant web server that pairs up with PHP and enhances its performance. When you have downloaded it, you will have to verify Apache. The next step is the installation process. You will find it explained most lucidly and comprehensively. After the installation process completes, you can open Apache and initiate the operations. The final step regarding the webserver is the configuration of Apache. The second half of this chapter focuses on the installation of PHP on your computer system. As it is a server-side language, its installation is a bit tricky and somewhat a tough nut to crack. However, by following the right steps, you can go through it like a breeze. It will be smooth sailing. When you have obtained PHP, you have to verify it. Next comes the task of the configuration of your web server regarding PHP. The chapter ends on explaining the configuration process.

The second chapter of the book focuses on the basics of PHP. I will explain how you should create an HTML page as it is an essential part of PHP. You will be required to embed your PHP code in the HTML document you create. The HTML document will help PHP run the web application. The PHP code will not be visible on the web page when you try to display it. All the code will remain hidden; however, the HTML code will be shown. I will analyze the PHP script for you so that you understand it when you read it in the next sections and write it for practice. This chapter contains valuable information about PHP variables, PHP strings, etc. You will learn how you can use PHP variables for storing information and using it later on.

The third chapter of the book focuses on creating PHP scripts that you would need when you build a web application. The first script, and also one of the most popular in many programming languages, is the conditional statement. A conditional statement can be identified by the keyword ‘if.’ The if statement comes into play when you have to set more than one condition in the code so that the web application reads through them and acts on them. If the first condition is true, the code doesn’t move further and just ends there. If the first condition turns out to be false, the code jumps on to the next condition and runs it. When there are ‘else-if’ statements, and the first two conditions turn out to be false, the third condition comes into play.

The chapter then moves on to the ‘nested if’ statements that contain two or more if statements nested inside of one if statement. Next comes PHP loops. They are the most interesting features of PHP. You can insert a loop inside of the code and make tasks easy and somewhat automated. There are three types of loops in PHP. The first that will come under discussion is the for loop. I will explain it with an example. Then I will move on to the nested for loops. After that, I will explain what a while loop is and how it works. You will see a sufficient amount of examples in these sections, which will create your concepts about these features of PHP. Sometimes, programmers accidentally create infinite loops that make a program run on end. I will explain what an infinite loop is and how it can be created accidentally. The next on the line is the Break statement. This statement is very important to break the infinite loop. If you include it in the code, it will make sure that there are no infinite loops in the code. Coupled with the break statement is the continue statement.

The fourth chapter of the book focuses on the advanced features of PHP language. I will start with PHP functions, which are the most amazing features in the world of PHP. A PHP function makes the server-side coding smart, brief, and fast. All you need is to create a function, and then you can make a function call later on, and all the code that the function contains will start running and doing its job. You save yourself the hassle of writing the same code over and over again. Everything just fits in the right spot when you choose functions to do the job for you. Functions should be understood in the right manner. There are arguments that you have to pass on to the functions. You can create a function that you can use for the rest of the programming session. I will explain with an example of what PHP arguments are and how you can pass on these arguments to PHP functions. You can add as many arguments to PHP functions as you can. Besides the arguments, you can fill in the functions with a bunch of default values. These default values will come into play if you leave PHP functions empty of arguments. You can fill your function with default values if you are going to use some particular values multiple times throughout a function. In the next section of this chapter, I will shed light on what return values are and what is their significance in the world of coding.

The fifth chapter of the book focuses on the object-oriented programming