Introduction to PHP
PHP, which stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor, is a popular server-side scripting language. Many popular web sites and content management systems are written with PHP, most notably Facebook. PHP code is preprocessed on the web server, which allows content to be created dynamically, especially when that content is stored in a database management system. PHP’s syntax generally follows that of C while also being influenced by Perl.
Learning Objectives
- Implement simple functions using PHP
- Pass data from HTML forms to PHP scripts
- Perform server-side validation of user input
How to Complete this Lesson
- Complete the following W3Schools tutorials (these have multiple parts):
- PHP Tutorial, which covers basic syntax (30–45 minutes)
- PHP Forms (15–30 minutes)
- Optional: Complete W3Schools’s PHP exercises if
you want practice with PHP’s syntax
(15–30 minutes)
- Note: Skip the last few exercises (Dates and Advanced)
- Complete the practice exercises (30–60 minutes)
- Respond to one of the prompts in the discussion forum (30 minutes)
- Work on the web development programming exercise (PEX)
(120 minutes)
- Add client-side form validation to the volunteer page
Due
As a reminder, the following is due this lesson: