21 June 07
PHP Tutorials: Introduction
This is a set of tutorials that should be able to raise you from a total beginner to a much more advanced php coder. You will be able to build your own optimized web applications that can do a number of complex calculations. I will help you to write code in a better way, rather than having to change all your applications later, when you find out you had been doing something the long way.
I have split the tutorials up into ‘Basic’, ‘Moderate’ and ‘Advanced’. This means if you consider yourself as a reasonable coder you can skip to ‘Moderate’. If you follow every single tutorial you should be able to transfer from one section to the other easily.
I have tried to cover most topics of PHP, but you will need to look up anything extra (like using extensions such as GD) on the web. In addition, books can really help to reinforce your understanding and give you tips that nobody else tells you. This tutorial can only take you so far and a combination of books and other internet resources in addition to this tutorial should have you coding php in no time.
Here are the tutorials I will be guiding you through:
- Introduction (this)
Basic:
- PHP Syntax & Integration with HTML
- Variables and Values
- Comments
- Conditions and Operators (if, else, else if, switch)
- Looping and Arrays (for, foreach, while)
- Useful Functions
- Creating and calling functions
- Obtaining input from forms
Moderate:
- Sessions
- Including files
- Reading from/Writing to files
- Building Flat File Applications
- PHP and Mysql – a common combination
- Authentication
- FTP
Advanced:
- CUrl and Fopen on remote files
- PHP 4 Classes
- PHP 5 Classes
- Using multiple databases – Database abstraction
- Security
- Good coding practises
What is PHP?
Well, php is an interpreted web language, which means when a visitor asks for that page the page is executed/run by the programming language engine and placed on the page. ASP and Perl are similar languages to PHP so if you know them then you should have an idea for PHP. Anyway, PHP is a server side scripting language because guess what…it gets executed on the server! Client side scripting languages like Javascript are executed on the visitor’s computer.
Why use PHP?
PHP has an easy to learn syntax and is optimized for web development. PHP is designed for web development, so it has lots of features to help you build flexible web applications. As I guide you through the features of PHP you will start to understand what I mean.
Nice I just finished reading all the beginner section – well, up to conditions and operators, please make the rest of the beginner’s guide – I wanna learn so much, but I find that only your guide makes sense, for you explain everything keep up the good work! hope to read the rest soon!
Thanks for your compliments Jason. I will be making the next few tutorials very shortly, in a matter of a few days actually.