FAQ - What Is PHP Web Hosting?
From the PHP website: "PHP is a server-side, cross-platform, HTML embedded scripting language." Here's an explanation of what this definition means:
- Server-Side: This means that PHP scripts execute on the web server, not within the browser on your local machine.
- Cross-Platform: Cross-platform means that PHP scripts can run on many different web servers and operating systems, primarily Windows/IIS and Unix/Apache.
- HTML Embedded Scripting Language: This means PHP statements and commands are actually embedded in your HTML documents. When the web server sees the PHP statements in the webpage, the server executes the statements and sends the resulting output along with the rest of the HTML.
What Can You Do with PHP?
Like most other server-side scripting languages, PHP is excellent for creating dynamic websites based on database content or different characteristics of Internet browsers. Through the use of external libraries and functions, PHP can:
- Build templates to ease website maintenance.
- Serve different website content to users based on their browser, IP address, date and time, or numerous other characteristics.
- Conduct online surveys, build discussion forums and operate web-based e-mail programs.
- Connect databases like Access or MySQL to the Web, and process XML.
PHP is open source software that is completely free to use. You can also find a manual at PHP.net that documents all of PHP's functions and features. Check our PHP Web Hosting section for hosts that support PHP.
Related FAQs & Websites
- PHP.net - The official website for PHP.
- PHP Nuke - A very popular portal system for PHP-run websites.
- Zend Technologies - Powerful PHP software applications.
For more information about web hosting, please take a look at our Web Hosting Articles. Also, if you have a question you'd like to add to our FAQ or some other contribution you'd like to make to this page, please Contact Us.
