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Quick and Dirty Intro To PHP: by David Choffnes

This document provides a quick introduction to PHP by covering basic concepts like syntax, variables, data types, and scoping. It explains that PHP is a scripting language embedded in HTML and commonly used for web development. Key points include PHP's support for various databases, basic syntax like comments and escaping HTML, built-in variables, and how PHP handles type juggling and passing variables by reference.

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constantinescu george
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64 views43 pages

Quick and Dirty Intro To PHP: by David Choffnes

This document provides a quick introduction to PHP by covering basic concepts like syntax, variables, data types, and scoping. It explains that PHP is a scripting language embedded in HTML and commonly used for web development. Key points include PHP's support for various databases, basic syntax like comments and escaping HTML, built-in variables, and how PHP handles type juggling and passing variables by reference.

Uploaded by

constantinescu george
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Quick and Dirty Intro to PHP

By David Choffnes
(content shamelessly ripped from the manual)
What is PHP?
• PHP (recursive acronym for "PHP:
Hypertext Preprocessor") is a widely-used
Open Source general-purpose scripting
language that is especially suited for Web
development and can be embedded into
HTML.
– Write an HTML script with some embedded
code to do something
– Code is executed on the server.
What is PHP?
• An example:
• Example 1-1. An introductory example
<html>
<head>
<title>Example</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
echo "Hi, I’m a PHP script!";
?>
</body>
</html>
Ridiculous DB support (and more)
• Writing a database-enabled web page is incredibly
simple. The following databases are currentlysupported:
– Adabas D, Ingres, Oracle (OCI7 and OCI8), dBase, InterBase,
Ovrimos, Empress, FrontBase, PostgreSQL, FilePro (read-only),
mSQL, Solid Hyperwave, Direct MS-SQL, Sybase, IBM DB2,
MySQL, Velocis, Informix, ODBC, Unix dbm
• DBX database abstraction extension
– allows you to transparently use any database
• Supports ODBC, the Open Database Connection
standard,
• Support for talking to other services using protocols such
as LDAP, IMAP, SNMP, NNTP, POP3, HTTP, COM (on
Windows) and countless others.
Basic syntax
• Escaping from HTML
– Example 5-1. Ways of escaping from HTML
1. <? echo ("this is the simplest, an SGML
processing instruction\n"); ?>
<?= expression ?> This is a shortcut for "<? echo
expression ?>"
2. <?php echo("if you want to serve XHTML or XML
documents, do like this\n"); ?>
3. <script language="php">
echo ("some editors (like FrontPage) don’t
like processing instructions");
</script>
4. <% echo ("You may optionally use ASP-style
tags"); %>
<%= $variable; # This is a shortcut for "<%
echo . . ." %>
Basic Syntax
• Example 5-2. Advanced escaping
<?php
if ($expression) {
?>
<strong>This is true.</strong>
<?php
} else {
?>
<strong>This is false.</strong>
<?php
}
?>
Instruction Separation
• Instructions are separated the same as in
C or Perl - terminate each statement with
a semicolon.
• The closing tag (?>) also implies the end
of the statement, so the following are
equivalent:
<?php
echo "This is a test";
?>
<?php echo "This is a test" ?>
Comments
• PHP supports C, C++ and Unix shell style
comments
<?php
echo "This is a test"; // This is a one-
line c++ style comment
/* This is a multi line comment
yet another line of comment */
echo "This is yet another test";
echo "One Final Test"; # This is shell-
style style comment
?>
Types
• PHP supports eight primitive types.
– Four scalar types:
• boolean
• integer
• floating-point number (float)
• string
– Two compound types:
• array
• object
– And finally two special types:
• resource
• NULL
Scalars
• Very simple:
– $foo = true; (boolean)
– $foo = 20; (integer)
– $foo = 3.1415; (float)
Strings
• A string literal can be specified in three
different ways.
– single quoted
• Variables not expanded
– double quoted
• $foo = 20;
• echo “The value of foo is $foo”;
Strings
– heredoc syntax
Example 6-2. Here doc string quoting example
<?php
$str = <<<EOD
Example of string
spanning multiple lines
using heredoc syntax.
EOD;
?>
Arrays
• Specifying with array()
– An array can be created by the array() language-
construct. It takes a certain number of comma-
separated key => value pairs.
– A key is either a nonnegative integer or a string. If a
key is the standard representation of a non-negative
integer, it will be interpreted as such (i.e. ’8’ will be
interpreted as 8, while ’08’ will be interpreted as ’08’).
– A value can be anything.
– If you omit a key, the maximum of the integer-indices
is taken, and the new key will be that maximum +1. If
no integer-indices exist yet, the key will be 0 (zero). If
you specify a key that already has a value assigned to
it, that value will be overwritten.
Arrays
array( [key =>] value
, ...
)
// key is either string or nonnegative integer
// value can be anything

Creating/modifying with square-bracket syntax


– You can also modify an existing array, by explicitly setting values.
– This is done by assigning values to the array while specifying the
key in brackets. You can also omit the key, add an empty pair of
brackets ("[]") to the variable-name in that case.
Arrays
$arr[key] = value;
$arr[] = value;
// key is either string or
nonnegative integer
// value can be anything
Objects
• Object Initialization
– To initialize an object, you use the new statement to
instantiate the object to a variable.
<?php
class foo
{
function do_foo()
{
echo "Doing foo.";
}
}
$bar = new foo;
$bar->do_foo();
?>
Null
• The special NULL value represents that a
variable has no value. NULL is the only
possible value of type NULL.
Type Juggling
• PHP does not require (or support) explicit type
definition in variable declaration;
• A variable’s type is determined by the context in
which that variable is used.
– If you assign a string value to variable var, var
becomes a string. If you then assign an integer value
to var, it becomes an integer.
• Operators on multiple types do NOT change the
types of the operands themselves; the only
change is in how the operands are evaluated.
Type Juggling
• Example
$foo = "0"; // $foo is string
(ASCII 48)
$foo += 2; // $foo is now an
integer (2)
$foo = $foo + 1.3; // $foo is now a
float (3.3)
$foo = 5 + "10 Little Piggies"; //
$foo is integer (15)
$foo = 5 + "10 Small Pigs"; // $foo
is integer (15)
Variable Basics
• Variables in PHP are represented by a dollar
sign followed by the name of the variable.
• Variable name is case-sensitive.
• Variable names follow the same rules as other
labels in PHP.
– A valid variable name
• starts with a letter or underscore
• Followed by any number of letters, numbers, or underscores.
• As a regular expression, it would be expressed thus: ’[a-zA-
Z_\x7f-\xff][a-zA-Z0-9_\x7f-\xff]*’
Variables
• Example
$var = "Bob";
$Var = "Joe";
echo "$var, $Var"; // outputs "Bob, Joe"
$4site = ’not yet’; // invalid; starts
with a number
$_4site = ’not yet’; // valid; starts
with an underscore
$täyte = ’mansikka’; // valid; ’ä’ is
ASCII 228.
References
• Example
<?php
$foo = ’Bob’; // Assign the value ’Bob’
to $foo
$bar = &$foo; // Reference $foo via $bar.
$bar = "My name is $bar"; // Alter
$bar...
echo $foo; // $foo is altered too.
echo $bar;
?>
PHP Variables
• $argv
– Array of arguments passed to the script.
• $argc
– Contains the number of command line parameters passed to the script (if run on
the command line).
• $PHP_SELF
– The filename of the currently executing script, relative to the document root.
• $HTTP_COOKIE_VARS
– An associative array of variables passed to the current script via HTTP cookies.
• $_COOKIE
– An associative array of variables passed to the current script via HTTP cookies.
• $HTTP_GET_VARS
– An associative array of variables passed to the current script via the HTTP GET
method.
PHP Variables
• $_GET
– An associative array of variables passed to the current script via the
HTTP GET method.
• $HTTP_POST_VARS
– An associative array of variables passed to the current script via the
HTTP POST method.
• $_POST
– An associative array of variables passed to the current script via the
HTTP POST method.
• $HTTP_POST_FILES
– An associative array of variables containing information about files
uploaded via the HTTP POST method.
• $_FILES
– An associative array of variables containing information about files
uploaded via the HTTP POST method
PHP Variables
• $HTTP_ENV_VARS
– An associative array of variables passed to the
current script via the parent environment.
• $_ENV
– An associative array of variables passed to the
current script via the parent environment.
• $HTTP_SERVER_VARS
– An associative array of variables passed to the
current script from the HTTP server.
• $_SERVER
– An associative array of variables passed to the
current script from the HTTP server.
PHP Variables
• $HTTP_SESSION_VARS
– An associative array of session variables passed to
the current script.
• $_SESSION
– An associative array of session variables passed to
the current script.
• $_REQUEST
– An associative array merged from the GET, POST,
and Cookie variables. In other words - all the
information that is coming from the user, and that from
a security point of view, cannot be trusted.
Scope
• Variables declared outside of functions, classes
are global to the script, outside of function blocks
• Unlike C! Global variables are not automatically
available to functions
• Example:
$a = 1; /* global scope */
function Test()
{
echo $a; /* reference to local scope
variable */
}
Test();
Variable Scope
• Access to global variables inside functions
– Explicitly declare variable as global
global $a, $b;
– Use the $GLOBALS array
$foo = $GLOBALS[“a”]
Variable Variables
(aka, Dave blows your mind)
• A variable variable takes the value of a variable and
treats that as the name of a variable. In the above
$a = "hello";
$$a = "world";
• Two variables have been defined and stored in the PHP
symbol tree:
– $a with contents "hello"
– $hello with contents "world“

echo "$a ${$a}";


produces the exact same output as:
echo "$a $hello";
i.e. they both produce: hello world.
HTML Forms (GET and POST)
• When a form is submitted to a PHP script, any variables from that
form will be automatically made available to the script by PHP.
• Located in the associative arrays $HTTP_POST_VARS,
$HTTP_GET_VARS, and/or
• $HTTP_POST_FILES, according to the source of the variable in
question.

• Example 7-1. Simple form variable


<form action="foo.php" method="post">
Name: <input type="text" name="username"><br>
<input type="submit">
</form>
• When the above form is submitted, the value from the text input will
be available in $HTTP_POST_VARS[’username’].
More Complex HTML Forms
• Example 7-2. More complex form variables
<form action="array.php" method="post">
Name: <input type="text"
name="personal[name]"><br>
Email: <input type="text"
name="personal[email]"><br>
Beer: <br>
<select multiple name="beer[]">
<option value="warthog">Warthog
<option value="guinness">Guinness
<option value="stuttgarter">Stuttgarter
Schwabenbr&auml;u
</select>
<input type="submit">
</form>
Cookies!
• Set cookies using the setcookie() function.
– Cookies are part of the HTTP header, so the
SetCookie function must be called before any output
is sent to the browser.
• Any cookies sent to you from the client will
automatically be turned into a PHP variable just
like GET and POST method data.
• If you wish to assign multiple values to a single
cookie, just add [] to the cookie name.
– For example:
setcookie("MyCookie[]", "Testing",
time()+3600);
Control structures
• If, then, else, elseif, while, foreach,
do…while, for, break, continue, switch,
case, return
• Supports backticks like Perl
Other stuff
• require(/path/to/file.php)
– Includes and evaluates the specified file
• include(...)
– Same thing
• include_once(...)
– Makes sure same file is not included multiple
times
User-defined functions
• A function may be defined using syntax
such as the following:
function foo ($arg_1, $arg_2, ...,
$arg_n)
{
echo "Example function.\n";
return $retval;
}
Variable functions
• Example 12-1. Variable function example
<?php
function foo()
{
echo "In foo()<br>\n";
}
function bar($arg = ”)
{
echo "In bar(); argument was ’$arg’.<br>\n";
}
$func = ’foo’;
$func();
$func = ’bar’;
$func(’test’);
?>
More on PHP
• Read the Manual!
• Know your PHP version number!
• Repeat after me:
http://www.PHP.net is your friend.
Oracle (finally)
• Two DBIs:
– Oracle (old, deprecated, don’t use)
– Oracle 8
• <= PHP4 naming is different from PHP5 naming
• Old naming is deprecated in PHP5, but tlab-login
has only PHP4
Oracle Function List
• OCIDefineByName
• OCIBindByName
• OCILogon
• OCIPLogon
• OCINLogon
• OCILogOff
• OCIExecute
• OCICommit
• OCIRollback
• OCINewDescriptor
• OCIRowCount
Oracle Function List
• OCINumCols
• OCIResult
• OCIFetch
• OCIFetchInto
• OCIFetchStatement
• OCIColumnIsNULL
• OCIColumnName
• OCIColumnSize
• OCIColumnType
• OCIServerVersion
• OCIStatementType
• OCINewCursor
Oracle Function List
• OCIFreeStatement
• OCIFreeCursor
• OCIFreeDesc
• OCIParse
• OCIError
• OCIInternalDebug
• OCICancel
• OCISetPrefetch
• OCIWriteLobToFile
• OCISaveLobFile
• OCISaveLob
Oracle Function List
• OCILoadLob
• OCIColumnScale
• OCIColumnPrecision
• OCIColumnTypeRaw
• OCINewCollection
• OCIFreeCollection
• OCICollAssign
• OCICollAppend
• OCICollAssignElem
• OCICollGetElem
• OCICollMax

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