We’ve been talking about PHP for 2 days now; we even wrote a simple PHP
script and understood its working. Now comes a big question, “How do we
write and run PHP scripts?”. Do we need some special software to write
PHP code? How do we run these scripts?
Let’s know the answers!
Writing PHP scripts
You don’t need anything special; really, plain old Notepad would do just
fine. PHP is an interpreted language hence code remains as it is (not compiled)
thus any plain text editor is fine. Although syntax highlighted text editors
would be better.
If you are using a word processor instead, be sure to save the files as plain
text files and not in the proprietary formats.
Notepad, as I said may be used but I don’t recommend using it, instead
use code editors like Programmers
Notepad, Notepad++(really
great, supports numerous third-party plug-ins)that have syntax highlighting
feature. That would make you easily understand the code and write it in a better
way with proper indenting etc.
Though, I personally use Macromedia Dreamweaver which has decent syntax highlighting
and IntelliSense type, on the fly, function reference, you are free to use any
editor you like and feel comfortable with.
I’ve read some positive reviews about PHP
Designer(Paid Software although there is a free lite version) but I
reserve my comments because I’ve yet to use it.
As you can see, PHP is just like JavaScript in this case. Both are interpreted
language and both don’t need any special software to write the codes in.
Running PHP scripts
In this case, PHP is way different that JavaScript. JavaScript is client sided
hence interpreted by the browser; PHP on the other hand is server-sided which
means a server is NEEDED to interpret its scripts. Be it somebody else’s
server (Web hosts) or your own PC server (that you can install yourself).
There are 3 things that you can do to be able to run PHP scripts:
-
Buy web space, most web hosts even the cheapest ones give PHP support
-
Find a free web host that has PHP support. You can find plenty of them
at http://www.free-webhosts.com/
-
Install your own web server on your own PC. This way your computer would
act both as a server and a client. This according to most is the best way
to learn PHP.
In the coming posts, I’ll give you a detailed set-by-step guide for installing
your own web server along with PHP.
So till then good bye guys and thanks for reading!
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