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PHP vs ASP

WebProgrammer — Fri, 28 May 2010 13:26:44 +0000

Here’s a quick comparison of PHP vs ASP
• Open source
• Free
• PHP is cross-platform scripting language.
- It can run on Linux, Solaris, Windows
- ASP runs reliably on IIS
• PHP is faster than ASP
• No Hidden Costs with PHP
• PHP is object oriented

Why use PHP?

• It’s fast: On Web sites, because it is embedded in HTML code, the time to process and load a Web page is short.

• It’s free: PHP is proof that free lunches do exist and that you can get more than you paid for.

• It’s easy to use: The syntax is simple and easy to understand and use,even for non-programmers. For use in Web sites, PHP code is designed to be included easily in an HTML file.

• It’s versatile: PHP runs on a wide variety of operating systems —Windows, Linux, Mac OS, and most varieties of Unix.

PHP Hello World Example

WebProgrammer — Fri, 28 May 2010 13:15:52 +0000

Here’s a simple PHP Hello World Example

< html >
< head >
< title > PHP says hello < /title >
< /head >
< body >
< b > < ? php print "Hello, World!"; ? > < /b >
< /body >
< /html >

How do I run a php file ?

• Create a service suitably in IIS/Apache..
• Run the said file by browsing the same.

PHP Templates

For reuse & easy maintenance one can use PHP Templates

< html >
< title >{TITLE}< /title >
< body >
{CONTENT}
< /body >
< /html >

History of PHP

WebProgrammer — Fri, 28 May 2010 13:03:07 +0000

Let us take a look at the history of PHP. Rasmus Lendorf was the creator of PHP language.

What Does PHP Stand for
PHP stands for PHP Hypertext Preprocessor; however, Personal Home Page is also abbreviated as PHP commonly.

Error Handling in PHP

• Return status of the function is checked
- ‘die’ statement is used to print error message on to the terminal and to terminate
• eg:
- sql_select_db($dbName) or DIE(“Table unavailable”);

• error_log :
- is used to log errors

Features of PHP

- supports Cookies
- Handles file uploads
- Session Management
- Handles Database Connections
- HTTP authentication

Websites that run on PHP

- www.php.org
- linuxjournal.org
- sony.com
- nokia.com

AltaVista survey Results on web scripting languages popularity

- ASP – 48%
- PHP – 30%
- JSP & others- 22%

Google search stats for server pages

- ASP – 205,000,000
- PHP – 256,000,000
- JSP – 26,300,000

Introduction to PHP

WebProgrammer — Fri, 28 May 2010 12:48:10 +0000

PHP is a widely-used scripting language that is suited for Web development can be embedded into HTML.

Here’s a brief introduction to PHP

• PHP is a High level language,similar to English.
• PHP started life as Personal Home Page tools, developed by Rasmus Lerdorf to assist users with Web page tasks.
• PHP’s syntax is similar to C syntax.
• PHP files can have .php or .phtml or both as their file extension.This can be configured on the Web server.

PHP supports the following databases -

• dBASE
• Informix
• Ingres
• Microsoft SQL Server
• mSQL
• MySQL
• Oracle
• PostgreSQL
• Sybase
• ODBC (Open Database Connectivity)