Web Programming

02 Introduction to PHP
Dr. Mostafa Elgendy
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Agenda

❖ Introduction to PHP

❖ Installing Environment

❖ PHP Syntax

❖ PHP Operators

❖ Summary

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Introduction to PHP

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URLs and web servers

❖ Usually when you type a URL in your browser:

❖ Your computer looks up the server's IP address using DNS

❖ Your browser connects to that IP address and requests the given file

❖ The web server software (e.g. Apache) grabs that file from the server's
local file system

❖ The server sends back its contents to you

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URLs and web servers (cont.)

❖ Some URLs specify programs that the web server should run,
and then send their output back to you.

❖ Example: http://www.facebook.com/home.php

❖ This URL tells the server facebook.com to run the program home.php and
send back its output

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Server-Side web programming

❖ Programs written using many web programming languages

❖ examples: PHP, Java/JSP, ASP.NET, Python, Perl

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What is PHP?

❖ PHP stands for “Personal Home Page”

❖ PHP stands for "PHP Hypertext Preprocessor"

❖ Server-side scripting language

❖ PHP code can be embedded in HTML code

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What is PHP?

❖ Used to make web pages dynamic:

❖ Provide different content depending on context

❖ Interface with other services: database, e-mail, etc.

❖ Authenticate users

❖ Process form information

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Lifecycle of a PHP web request

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Why PHP?

❖ Free and open source

❖ Compatible

❖ There were more than 19 million websites using PHP.

❖ Simple

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Hello World!

<?php
echo "Hello, world!";
?>
PHP
Hello world!
output

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Development Server

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WAMP, MAMP, LAMP or XAMPP?

❖ WAMP: Windows, Apache, MariaDB, and PHP

❖ MAMP: Mac, Apache, MariaDB, and PHP

❖ LAMP: Linux, Apache, MariaDB, and PHP.

❖ XAMPP: cross-platform, Apache, MariaDB, PHP

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WAMP, MAMP, LAMP or XAMPP?

❖ Download link:

❖ https://www.apachefriends.org/download.html

❖ Installing each component:

❖ Downloading and integrating the various parts yourself can be very time-
consuming

❖ Require a lot of research in order to configure everything fully

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XAMPP

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IDE

❖ Visual Studio Code (VSC)

❖ Runs on all of Windows, Mac,

Linux;

❖ Free

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Write and Run first Program

❖ Open the directory where

XAMPP is installed.

❖ By default, XAMPP is installed in

the C:\ drive

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Write and Run first Program

❖ Inside that “htdocs” folder,

create a folder and name it
anything suiting your project.

❖ Here, it has been named as

“lect2_app”.

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Write and Run first Program

❖ Now open Visual Studio Code

and click on “open folder”

❖ Locate to C:\xampp\htdocs and

select the “lect2_app” folder
you created.

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Write and Run first Program

❖ Create a file named “index.php”

inside the lect2_app folder.

❖ Since PHP is embedded into

HTML codes, write the following
HTML code along with the PHP
script.

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Write and Run first Program

❖ Save the file and open your web

browser and type “localhost”
followed by the folder name that
you created and hit enter..

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PHP Basic Syntax

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PHP syntax template

❖ Contents of a .php file between <?php and ?> are executed as PHP code

❖ All other contents are output as pure HTML

HTML content
<?php
PHP code
?>
HTML content
<?php
PHP code
?>
PHP

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Console output: print

<?php
echo "Hello, World!\n";
echo "Escape \"chars\" are the SAME as in Java!\n";
echo "You can have line breaks in a string.";
echo 'A string can use "single-quotes". It\'s cool!’;
?>
PHP

Hello world! Escape "chars" are the SAME as in Java! You can have line breaks in
a string. A string can use "single-quotes". It's cool!
output

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PHP syntax template

❖ PHP is quite a simple language with roots in C and Perl.

❖ It is also very flexible,

❖ There are a few rules to learn about its syntax and structure

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PHP syntax rules

❖ Semicolons: PHP commands ended with a semicolon, like this:

echo "Hello, world!";

❖ $: is used in front of all variables like this:$x += 10;

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Comments

❖ Two ways to add comments to your PHP code.

❖ single line comment by using a pair of forward slashes.

❖ Multiple lines comment by using the /* and */ pairs of characters

// single-line comment
/*
multi-line comment
*/
PHP

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Variables

❖ Names always begin with $, on both declaration and usage

❖ After the dollar sign, must start with a letter or the _ (underscore) character.

❖ Variable names can contain only the characters a–z, A–Z, 0–9, and _
(underscore).

❖ Variable names may not contain spaces. If a variable name must

comprise more than one word, a good idea is to separate the words
with the _ (underscore) character (e.g., $user_name).

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Variables

❖ Variable names are case-sensitive. The variable $High_Score is not

the same as the variable $high_score

❖ Always implicitly declared by assignment (type is not written)

❖ A loosely typed language (like JavaScript or Python)

❖ This means that variables do not have to be declared before they are used.

❖ PHP converts variables to the type required by their context.

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❖ Think of them as little (or big) matchboxes

that you’ve painted over and written names
on.
$name = expression; PHP

$username = "Fred Smith";

$age = 16;
$drinking_age = $age + 5;
$this_class_rocks = TRUE; PHP

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Variables

❖ Example:

<?php // example2.php
$username = "Fred Smith";
echo $username;
echo "<br>";
$current_user = $username;
echo $current_user;
?>
PHP

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Variables

❖ Basic types: int, float, boolean, string, array, object

❖ Test type of variable with is_type functions, e.g. is_string

❖ gettype function returns a variable's type as a string

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Variables

❖ PHP is a loosely typed language.

❖ PHP converts between types automatically in many cases:

❖ string → int auto-conversion on +

❖ int → float auto-conversion on /

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Variables

❖ Sometimes implicit casting may not be what you want.

❖ In division, by default PHP converts the output to floating point.

❖ But what if we want it to be an integer instead

❖ Explicit casting is the solution.

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❖ You can think of arrays as several

matchboxes glued together.

❖ $team = array('Bill', 'Mary', 'Mike', 'Chris',

'Anne’);

❖ If we then wanted to know who player 4

is, we could use this command:

❖ echo $team[3]; // Displays the name Chris

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❖ Arrays can be two-dimensional matrixes or even

have more dimensions.

❖ To then return the third element in the second row

of this array, use:

❖ echo $oxo[1][2];
<?php // example3.php
$oxo = array(array('x', ' ', 'o'),
array('o', 'o', 'x'),
array('x', 'o', ' '));
?>
PHP

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PHP Operators

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Operators

❖ Arithmetic operators:

❖ Let you specify mathematical operations to perform, such as addition,

subtraction, multiplication, and division.

❖ Other types of operators

❖ String, comparison, and logical operators.

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❖ Perform mathematics:

❖ The main four operations (add,

subtract, multiply, and divide)

❖ Find a modulus (the remainder

after a division)

❖ Increment or decrement a value.

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 Operators: Assignment operators 40

❖ These operators assign

values to variables.

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 Operators: Comparison operators 41

❖ Used inside a construct such

as an if statement in which
you need to compare two
items.

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❖ Used to combine the results of

two of the comparison operators.

❖ For example, you might say to

yourself, “If the time is later than
12 p.m. and earlier than 2 p.m.,
have lunch.”

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String types

❖ PHP supports two types of strings that are denoted by the type of
quotation mark that you use.

❖ To assign a literal string, preserving the exact contents use single-quoted:

❖ $info = 'Preface variables with a $ like this: $variable’;

❖ To include the value of a variable inside a string, use double-quoted:

❖ echo "This week $count people have viewed your profile";

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String escaping characters

❖ Sometimes a string needs to contain characters with special

meanings that might be interpreted incorrectly.

❖ $text = 'My spelling's atroshus'; // Erroneous syntax

❖ To correct this, you can add a backslash directly

❖ $text = 'My spelling\'s still atroshus’;

❖ $text = "She wrote upon it, \"Return to sender\".";

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String Functions

Name Java Equivalent

strlen length
$name = "Stefanie Hatcher";
$length = strlen($name); strpos indexOf
$cmp = strcmp($name, "Brian Le"); substr substring
$index = strpos($name, "e");
toLowerCase,
$first = substr($name, 9, 5); strtolower, strtoupper
toUpperCase
$name = strtoupper($name);
PHP trim trim
explode, implode split, join
strcmp compareTo

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Math operations

$a = 3;
$b = 4;
$c = sqrt(pow($a, 2) + pow($b, 2));
PHP

abs ceil cos floor log log10 max

min pow rand round sin sqrt tan

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Constants

❖ Constants are similar to variables,

❖ holding information to be accessed later.

❖ Once defined, its value is set for the remainder of the program and cannot be altered.

❖ Example: define("ROOT_LOCATION", "/usr/local/www/");

❖ Must not be prefaced with a $ (unlike regular variables). Just use the define
function.

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Summary

❖ Introduction to PHP

❖ Installing Environment

❖ PHP Syntax

❖ PHP Operators

❖ Summary

IS388 - Web Programming 21-Oct-22

Questions