PHP Tutorials for Beginner

PHP is a powerful server-side scripting language for creating dynamic and interactive websites.

PHP is the widely-used, free, and efficient alternative to competitors such as Microsoft's ASP. PHP is perfectly suited for Web development and can be embedded directly into the HTML code.

The PHP syntax is very similar to Perl and C. PHP is often used together with Apache (web server) on various operating systems. It also supports ISAPI and can be used with Microsoft's IIS on Windows.


A PHP file may contain text, HTML tags and scripts. Scripts in a PHP file are executed on the server.
What You Should Already Know

Before you continue you should have a basic understanding of the following:

* HTML / XHTML
* Some scripting knowledge

If you want to study these subjects first, find the tutorials on our Home page.
What is PHP?

* PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
* PHP is a server-side scripting language, like ASP
* PHP scripts are executed on the server
* PHP supports many databases (MySQL, Informix, Oracle, Sybase, Solid, PostgreSQL, Generic ODBC, etc.)
* PHP is an open source software (OSS)
* PHP is free to download and use

What is a PHP File?

* PHP files may contain text, HTML tags and scripts
* PHP files are returned to the browser as plain HTML
* PHP files have a file extension of ".php", ".php3", or ".phtml"

What is MySQL?

* MySQL is a database server
* MySQL is ideal for both small and large applications
* MySQL supports standard SQL
* MySQL compiles on a number of platforms
* MySQL is free to download and use

PHP + MySQL

* PHP combined with MySQL are cross-platform (means that you can develop in Windows and serve on a Unix platform)

Why PHP?

* PHP runs on different platforms (Windows, Linux, Unix, etc.)
* PHP is compatible with almost all servers used today (Apache, IIS, etc.)
* PHP is FREE to download from the official PHP resource: http://www.php.net
* PHP is easy to learn and runs efficiently on the server side

Where to Start?

* Install an Apache server on a Windows or Linux machine
* Install PHP on a Windows or Linux machine
* Install MySQL on a Windows or Linux machine

Thank you for posting this article. This will really helps me a lot to learn about php.. Because i am quite new beginner in php..I am interested in getting to know this kind of programming language..

I am taking php and MySQL this semester in school.. I'm very excited.

nazreeric Good Article on PHP.
But I have some other Unknown facts about PHP as following.

PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a Web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document. As a general-purpose programming language, PHP code is processed by an interpreter application in command line mode performing desired operating system operations and producing program output on its standard output channel. It may also function as a graphical application. PHP is available as a processor for most modern web servers and as standalone interpreter on most operating system and computing platforms.

A pretty good site for getting the basics of PHP, Ajax, and Perl is Tizag.com it will really help you grasp certain concepts and it's explained very simply.

I know I’m being too much greedy…. But I would be waiting for some Javascript and AJAX tutorials too.

Thank you for this informative post. I would also like to mention that tiztag also has several tutorials to help you get started with PHP.

nice tips for the beginner..when i started with php i read some books, took a MySQL class at a community college and also used this site extensively (this is not spam, i promise) ---> it's just a great resource that I'm completely unaffiliated with.....http://www.tuxradar.com/practicalphp

Good luck to all those new to PHP!

Nice this post is great for the beginner of PHP i also expect that some more threads comes from the your side.


* link removed*

I think the most difficult aspect of PHP to master would be the object orientated aspect coding. After 3 years of uni I have learnt how it works and operates, but to learn that by self study would be incredibly difficult to get my head around all the techniques.

What could also be useful is a disection of code? The purpose of each line as well as good programming habbits.