Core Web Application Development with PHP and MySQL

Chapter 1. Getting Started with PHP

By now, you have managed to get PHP running on your server or workstation and are ready to start writing scripts in PHP. If you have not, or you are still having problems, please see Appendix A, "Installation/Configuration," for more details. In this chapter, we are going to write our first programs using PHP, and learn about the basics of working with the language.

Over the course of this chapter we will

• Write a few basic PHP programs and learn how to enter and process PHP scripts

• See the basics of how the language is structured and how to comment your code

• Learn about some of the more common and basic data types in PHP

• Learn about some useful functions that we will use throughout this book