PHP

Basics

Installation

Download and extract source code into C:\php
copy C:\php\php.ini-development into a new file called C:\php\php.ini

edit php.ini to include any required extensions, such as:

extension=curl
extension=gd
extension=mbstring
extension=pdo_mysql

If you want to send emails using PHP’s mail() function, enter the details of an SMTP server in the [mail function] section (your ISP’s server should be suitable):

[mail function]
; For Win32 only.
; http://php.net/smtp
SMTP = mail.myisp.com
; http://php.net/smtp-port
smtp_port = 25

; For Win32 only.
; http://php.net/sendmail-from
sendmail_from = [email protected]

Add C:\php to PATH environment variable

Windows Start --> environment --> Edit system environment variables --> Advanced --> Environment Variables button --> scroll down System variables list --> click Path --> Edit button --> New --> add C:\php

Delineator in HTML

<html>
  <head></head>
  
  <body>
    <?php

    ?>
  </body>
</html>

Setup - XAMPP on Windows 10

https://www.apachefriends.org/index.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0_pthMQPMM

XAMPP (Win 10) - start control panel, then open browser to http://localhost/dashboard/ to access GUI for PHP, database, etc.

To run .php files in your local browser, copy them into a subfolder in C:\php\htdocs\ and then open them from there using the path localhost/[subfolder]/file.php in your web browser after XAMPP is running the apache server and any other needed resources
phpinfo() - set display_errors to on during development but make sure it's set to off in production;

Change setting:

press config button next to apache in XAMPP Control Panel
php.ini
ctrl + f 'display_errors'
save file
restart apache server
go to admin page, phpinfo(), double-check setting is correct

Notes

short-open tags are bad form (<? ?>, <?= ?>)
ASP-style tags are very bad form (<%= %>)
the above reduce portability and require changes to .ini file to work
whitespace doesn't matter
<?php phpinfo(); ?>
php needs to be saved in files ending in .php

Basics

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <title>Hello World</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <?php
    // single-line comment
    # or like this
  
    /* multi-line
       comments
    */
    ?>
    <?php echo "Hello world<br />"; ?>
    <?php 
      echo 2 + 3; // --> 5
      $greeting = "Hello";
      $target = "World";
      $phrase = $greeting . " " . $target;
      echo $phrase;
      echo "$phrase again, another way to concatenate<br />";
    ?> 
  </body>
</html>

Variables

start with $, followed by letter or underscore
can contain letters, numbers, underscores or dashes
no spaces, case-sensitive

Strings

concatenate strings with a dot $phrase = $greeting . " " . $target;
concatenate variables with string literals using double quotes, optionally, make it very clear visually with braces, i.e., echo "{$phrase} again<br />";

vonnenaut/php.md

PHP

Basics

Installation

Delineator in HTML

Setup - XAMPP on Windows 10

Notes

Basics

Variables

Strings