A Beginner's Guide to Learning PHP Basics

In the Internet era, the development of websites and mobile applications is becoming more and more popular, so programming languages ​​​​are also emerging. Among them, the PHP language is highly regarded for its advantages of being easy to learn and use, open source, strong compatibility and high performance. Website and mobile application developers who want to learn the basics of PHP can refer to the following learning guide.

1. Programming environment setup

PHP language is a server-side scripting language, so you need to set up a corresponding programming environment before learning. It is recommended that beginners use the XAMPP or WAMP software package. Both include a PHP interpreter, a MySQL database and an Apache web server. They can be installed and used directly after downloading.

2. Basic PHP syntax

The first step in learning PHP language is to understand the basic syntax of PHP. Here are some important basic syntaxes:

1. Variables:

A variable can store a single value. In PHP, variables are defined by the $ symbol followed by the variable name. Such as:

$myVariable = "Hello World!";

2. Data type:

PHP supports multiple data types, including strings, integers, floating point numbers, Boolean values, arrays, objects and null values.

3. Operators:

PHP supports most common operators, such as arithmetic operators, comparison operators, logical operators, etc.

4. Control flow statements:

PHP supports common control flow statements, such as if statements, for loops, while loops, etc.

5. Form processing

In the development process of websites and mobile applications, forms are a very common user interaction method. PHP can easily handle form-related content. The following are some commonly used form processing methods:

1. $_POST variable:

PHP uses the $_POST variable to collect forms data. For example:

<form action="handle_form.php" method="post">
<input type="text" name="username" />
<input type="password" name="password" />
<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>

In the handle_form.php file, use the $_POST variable to get the form data:

$username = $_POST['username'];
$password = $_POST['password'];

2. $_GET variable:

PHP also Supports using the $_GET variable to collect form data. The difference is that the $_POST variable encapsulates the form data in the HTTP request body, while the $_GET variable encapsulates the form data in the HTTP request URL.

6. MySQL database

MySQL is a widely used relational database management system that can store and manage large amounts of data. PHP provides a convenient interface to access the MySQL database through the MySQLi extension.

The following are some commonly used MySQLi functions:

1. mysqli_connect():

Create a connection to the MySQL database:,

$con = mysqli_connect("localhost", "username", "password", "myDB");

2. mysqli_query():

Query operations on the database:

$sql = "SELECT * FROM customers";
$result = mysqli_query($con, $sql);

3. mysqli_fetch_array():

From the database result set Read a row of data:

while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result)) {
echo $row['FirstName'] . " " . $row['LastName'];
echo "<br>";
}

The above is the relevant content for learning the basic knowledge of PHP. However, it should be noted that the PHP language is constantly developing and updated, so it is recommended that learners continue to pay attention to PHP official documentation and community information in order to master it. Deeper PHP knowledge.

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