PHP Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples - v5.17, by Herong Yang
PHP Script Source Code File Format
This section describes the PHP script source code file format - A text file with PHP code segments mixed into non-PHP text. The most common way to mix PHP codes is to use the PHP processing tag '?php'.
Like any other scripting language, PHP is used to transform text information from an input to an output by mixing PHP code segments in the input text. This input of mixed PHP code and non-PHP text is called PHP script source code, which is usually stored as a text file.
Since multiple PHP code segments can be mixed with non-PHP text, a PHP script source code will look like this:
text PHP_code text PHP_code text PHP_code ...
When you ask the PHP to process a PHP script source code, it will separate PHP code segments from the non-PHP text using following 3 default rules:
1. PHP processing tag: <?php PHP_code ?> - Everything included in the "?php" tag will be processed as PHP code. For example:
Hello <?php $name = "Herong"; echo $name; ?> , Nice to meet you!
2. PHP processing tag shorthand: <? PHP_code ?> - Everything included in the "?" tag will be processed as PHP code. For example:
Hello <? $name = "Herong"; echo $name; ?> , Nice to meet you!
3. HTML "script" tag: <script language="php">PHP_code</script> - Everything between the "script" starting tag and the "script" ending tag will be processed as PHP code. For example:
Hello <script language="php"> $name = "Herong"; echo $name; </script> , Nice to meet you!
The PHP processing tag is the most commonly used way to mixed PHP codes into non-PHP text to create a PHP script source code file. Since most PHP scripts are designed to generate Web pages, non-PHP text in a PHP script source code is made of mostly HTML tags. Here is an example of a PHP script source code that generates a simple Web page:
<html> <head> <title>Welcome Page</title> </head> <body> <p> Hello <?php $name = "Herong"; echo $name; ?> , Nice to meet you! </p> </body> </html>
Table of Contents
Introduction and Installation of PHP
►PHP Script Source Code File Format
PHP Statement Delimiter and Comments
PHP Data Types and Data Literals
Variables, References, and Constants
Expressions, Operations and Type Conversions
Conditional Statements - "if" and "switch"
Loop Statements - "while", "for", and "do ... while"
Function Declaration, Arguments, and Return Values
Interface with Operating System
Introduction of Class and Object
Integrating PHP with Apache Web Server
Retrieving Information from HTTP Requests
Creating and Managing Sessions in PHP Scripts
Sending and Receiving Cookies in PHP Scripts
Controlling HTTP Response Header Lines in PHP Scripts
MySQL Server Connection and Access Functions
Functions to Manage Directories, Files and Images
SOAP Extension Function and Calling Web Services
SOAP Server Functions and Examples
Localization Overview of Web Applications
Using Non-ASCII Characters in HTML Documents
Using Non-ASCII Characters as PHP Script String Literals
Receiving Non-ASCII Characters from Input Forms
"mbstring" Extension and Non-ASCII Encoding Management
Managing Non-ASCII Character Strings with MySQL Servers
Parsing and Managing HTML Documents
Configuring and Sending Out Emails
Managing PHP Engine and Modules on macOS