The PHP Hypertext Preprocessor is a programming language that can be embedded in your HTML pages to create dynamic Web pages. The commands are usually parsed on the Web server which returns plain HTML pages to the browser.
PHP also has extensive support for SQL database access, FTP, POP, XML, IMAP, SNMP and other standard protocols.
PHP commands are typically put in an HTML page inside a special PHP tag like this:
<? ... php commands ... ?>
The commands inside the PHP tag are processed from top to bottom of the page on the Web server before the page is sent to the browser. If the PHP is properly coded, the resulting page will be a standard HTML page that can be viewed with any browser. This makes is possible to create dynamic pages without relying on browser-specific extensions like JavaScript.
To use PHP in your pages your Web server must support PHP. Check with your Web space provider to see if they provide PHP support.
If you are using OS X you have the perfect environment for developing PHP pages. The popular Apache Web server is a part of the system and the PHP server extension for Apache is included in OS X 10.2 and higher. This makes it relatively easy to setup Personal Web Sharing and enable PHP to develop PHP files locally on your Mac.
When your work with PHP in PageSpinner it is recommendable to save your files with Unix Linefeeds since this makes it possible to locate any errors in your PHP code. You may set PageSpinner to use Unix Linefeeds for new files in Preferences : Default Filing Options...
See the following pages on the Web for more information:
This PHP code example is copyright © 2002-2003 Optima System. All rights reserved worldwide. Unauthorized distribution prohibited. SpinPHP™ User License.