PHP Basics - Overview

Congrats!! You have so far covered almost each and every building block of PHP scripting language and all these topics will help you in further digging up your way in PHP. No matter which programming language you are opting for, the first and perhaps the most important part of being a programmer is clearing up your basics of that programming language (php included).

This post is not meant for teaching you further components of php scripting language but will introduce you to your progress so far.

PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor)

Initially you were introduced how a Canadian developer’s Web page traffic counter spawned one of the world’s most popular programming languages and what are the aspects of php which attracts the expert and experienced programmers all over the world and about the four key motives (practicality, power, possibility, and price) of any programmer which are more than enough fulfilled by this mind-blowing programming language.

After that you were made to get your hands dirty in the downloading and installation processes of apache web server (on linux and windows platform)/IIS (on windows platform) and php scripting language. You were also introduced how to configure php coz as a programmer you must know what you are dealing with and how to handle your equipments.

After a brief tutorial on choosing a code editor for php and choosing a web hosting provider your real journey into php programming language was started.

PHP Basics being the most important topic of php covers almost each and every aspects of building block of php programming language including :

• Embedding php code in web pages
  
  
• Comments in php code
  
  
• Outputting data to the browser [print, echo, printf(), sprintf(), conversion specifiers]
  
  
• Supported data types in php [Scalar data types- Boolean, Integer, Float and String; Compound data types:- Array and Object; converting between data types; adapting data types; type related functions; retrieving types; convering types; Type identifier functions]
  
  
• Variables [ Value and reference assignment, scope, local variables, function parameters, static variables, global variables, super globals, Learning about the Server & Client and Operating system environment, Retrieving variables using GET/POST, within cookies, stored in sessions, and in files uploaded]
  
  
• Constants
  
  
• Expressions [operators:- arithmetic, assignment, string, logical, equality, comparison, bitwise, increment and decrement, operands, precedence, associativity]
  
  
• String Interpolation [double and single quotes, escape sequences, curly braces, heredoc and nowdoc]
  
  
• Control Structures [Conditional Statements:- if, else, elseif and switch; Looping Statements:- while, do…while, for, foreach, break, goto and continue; File Inclusion:- include() and require()]

Some of you might say that the topics discussed so far were not as glamorous as you might have expected. But talking about the basics- no matter how boring or lengthy it might be but these are invaluable to your success in each and every programming language.

Here's the cheat sheet for all the basics of php covered so far. Keep it handy.

php basics cheat sheet

or download from here : http://www.phpmagicbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/php-cheat-sheet-5657.png

Now that you have experienced and experimented the basic features of php you are now ready to dig even deeper and start the real action. You will be guided in making dynamic web pages from calculating calories intake values to email validation procedure. Now pay attention fellas!!! It’s time to study……

MOVE ON TO FUNCTIONS