What is PHP?

PHP, which stands for "Hypertext Preprocessor", is a server-side scripting language for creating dynamic Web pages. It is free and an open source and cross platform scripting language that runs on Windows or Linux/Unix. PHP's language syntax is similar to C's and Perl's. You don't have to declare variables before you use them and it is easy to create arrays and hashes. Much of its syntax is borrowed from C, Java and Perl with some unique features.

PHP provides excellent connectivity to several databases such as MySQL, Oracle, Sybase, PostgreSQL, and Generic ODBC. The most popular connectivity database compatibility that PHP used is the PHP/MYSQL.

PHP can also send HTTP headers, can set cookies, manage authentication, and redirect users. An HTML page that includes a PHP script will be determined through its suffixes or extension such as ".php" or ".php3”.