PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared towards web development.

It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by the PHP Group.

What is PHP?

PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML.

Nice, but what does that mean? An example:

Example #1 An introductory example

Instead of lots of commands to output HTML (as seen in C or Perl), PHP pages contain HTML with embedded code that does “something” (in this case, output “Hi, I’m a PHP script!”). The PHP code is enclosed in special start and end processing instructions <?php and ?> that allow you to jump into and out of “PHP mode.”

What distinguishes PHP from something like client-side JavaScript is that the code is executed on the server, generating HTML which is then sent to the client. The client would receive the results of running that script, but would not know what the underlying code was. You can even configure your web server to process all your HTML files with PHP, and then there’s really no way that users can tell what you have up your sleeve.

The best part about using PHP is that it is extremely simple for a newcomer, but offers many advanced features for a professional programmer. Don’t be afraid to read the long list of PHP’s features. You can jump in, in a short time, and start writing simple scripts in a few hours.

Although PHP’s development is focused on server-side scripting, you can do much more with it. Read on, and see more in the What can PHP do? section, or go right to the introductory tutorial if you are only interested in web programming.

Why use PHP?

PHP is a very popular language because it is simple and is open-source. There are many convincing reasons for why you should be using PHP, some of them being:

• It is easy to install and learn.
• It is open-source and therefore free.
• Not only that, but it is fast and secure.
• It runs on various platforms (Windows, Linux, Unix, etc.).
• PHP can access cookies variable and set cookies.
• It supports many protocols, such as HTTP, POP3, LDAP, IMAP, SNMP, NNTP, and many more.
• It is well-connected with databases and supports a wide range of databases. This feature also makes it suitable for handling forms.
• Many references and learning materials are available for PHP are available over the internet.

Features of PHP

We have learned about PHP and its uses. But what are the features that make PHP popular

Now that we have a basic understanding of PHP, let us see some of the most striking features of PHP.

Simplicity

PHP is particularly famous for its simplicity. It is organized and easy to learn. Even beginners won’t face any hard time learning and using PHP. It is a very well-organized programming language, and it comes with a lot of pre-defined functions, which makes the task of the programmer easy. There is no need to include libraries in PHP like C. With a lot of pre-defined functions, PHP is easy to optimize as well.

Flexibility

PHP scripts can run on any device- mobile, tablet, or PC. It is very compatible with various databases. It can be easily embedded and integrated into HTML, XML, and JavaScript. Likewise, it is also compatible with almost all servers used today like Apache, IIS, etc.

Objective oriented

PHP supports object-oriented programming features like data encapsulation, inheritance, abstraction, polymorphism, etc. The Object-oriented programming feature was added in PHP5. This feature helps in building complex reusable web pages and makes PHP comparable to powerful object-oriented languages like Java and Python.

Interpreted language

PHP is an interpreted language, which means there is no need for compilation. Interpreters run through a program line by line and execute the code. Since interpreters execute source code themselves, the code becomes platform-independent. Some other benefits of interpreted language include dynamic typing and short executable program size.

Efficient

PHP is a versatile, reliable, and efficient programming language. The memory management of PHP is very efficient. Great session management, eliminating unnecessary memory allocation, are some of the features that make PHP efficient.

Fast Performance

PHP scripts are usually faster than other scripting languages. Users can load their web pages faster, and they love it. PHP code runs faster than most of programming languages because it runs in its own memory space. Not only that, but its connection with databases is also fast and efficient.

Free and open-source

PHP is open-source, which means it can be downloaded and used freely. There is absolutely no hassle to acquire a license to use it and no payment is required to use it, so it is kind to your pocket too!

Case-sensitive

PHP is a partially case-sensitive language. Although functions names are not case-sensitive, other things in PHP are case-sensitive. The following things in PHP are case-sensitive:

• Variable names
• Constructs (if, if-else, if-elseif, while, do-while)
• Keywords (such as true and false)
• User-defined functions and class names

Security

PHP has many pre-defined functions for data encryption. Users can also use third-party applications for security. Security and flexibility are often contrasting features, but PHP somehow manages to offer them both, and that’s great. PHP is designed specifically to be a more secure language for writing CGI (Computer-generated Imagery) programs. Security algorithms such as Sha1 ( secure Hash algorithm 1) and MD5(Message digest 5) are used to encrypt the strings in PHP. Filter_var and strip_tags functions help to keep the environment more secure and safe for users.

Platform independent

We can run PHP on any device and operating system (Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux, RISC OS, or Unix). We can easily connect it with various databases and is also compatible with almost all web servers used today (Apache, IIS, and others). It supports a wide range of databases as well. Its cross-platform compatibility makes really popular among its users as it saves a lot of time and energy.

Loosely typed language

PHP supports variable declaration without declaring its data type.

Real-time access monitoring

PHP provides real-time information about users’ access. It provides a summary of recent accesses of the user. PHP offers a secure user management system and prevents unrestricted access. 

Error reporting and handling

PHP has many pre-defined functions and reporting constants that generate errors at runtime.PHP5 allows you to use semantics like try, throw and catch, like Java and C#. There are 16 levels of error in PHP5, representing the category and severity of an error in PHP. Also, error reporting in PHP is super easy with function error_reporting().

Memory and CPU use information

PHP has functions like memory_get_usage() and memory_get_peak_usage(), which provide users with the memory usage information. To get the current memory usage, we can use the memory_get_usage() function, and to get the peak amount of memory used at a point, we can use the memory_get_peak_usage() function. Therefore, by using these functions, you can monitor your memory usage and optimize your code by eliminating the lines of code consuming a lot of memory resources.

Active community support

PHP has got the backing and support of many users and volunteers across the globe. These volunteers contribute to many features and versions of PHP libraries. They also contribute to overcoming the language barrier by translating in different languages to help new programmers. Because of these volunteers, there are a lot of third-party open-source libraries available in the public domain providing basic functionalities as well as complex operations.

Find out more here.