<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<chapter xml:id="tutorial" xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">

<info><title>A simple tutorial</title></info>

<para>

Here we would like to show the very basics of PHP in a short, simple

tutorial. This text only deals with dynamic web page creation with

PHP, though PHP is not only capable of creating web pages. See

the section titled <link linkend="intro-whatcando">What can PHP

do</link> for more information.

</para>

<para>

PHP-enabled web pages are treated just like regular HTML pages and

you can create and edit them the same way you normally create

regular HTML pages.

</para>

<section xml:id="tutorial.requirements">

<info><title>What do I need?</title></info>

<para>

In this tutorial we assume that your server has activated support

for PHP and that all files ending in <filename class="extension">.php</filename>

are handled by PHP. On most servers, this is the default extension

for PHP files, but ask your server administrator to be sure. If

your server supports PHP, then you do not need to do anything. Just

create your <filename class="extension">.php</filename> files, put them in your

web directory and the server will automatically parse them for you.

There is no need to compile anything nor do you need to install

any extra tools. Think of these PHP-enabled files as simple HTML

files with a whole new family of magical tags that let you do all

sorts of things.

</para>

<para>

Let us say you want to save precious bandwidth and develop locally.

In this case, you will want to install a web server, such as

<link xlink:href="&url.apache;">Apache</link>, and of course

<link xlink:href="&url.php.downloads;">PHP</link>. You will most likely

want to install a database as well, such as

<link xlink:href="&url.mysql.docs;">MySQL</link>.

</para>

<para>

You can either install these individually or choose a simpler way. Our

manual has <link linkend="install">installation instructions for

PHP</link> (assuming you already have some web server set up). If

you have problems with installing PHP yourself, we would suggest you ask

your questions on our <link xlink:href="&url.php.mailing-lists;">installation

mailing list</link>. If you choose to go on the simpler route, then

<link xlink:href="&url.installkits;">locate a pre-configured package</link>

for your operating system, which automatically installs all of these

with just a few mouse clicks. It is easy to setup a web server with PHP

support on any operating system, including MacOSX, Linux and Windows.

On Linux, you may find <link xlink:href="&url.rpmfind;">rpmfind</link> and

<link xlink:href="&url.rpmfind.pbone;">PBone</link> helpful for

locating RPMs. You may also want to visit <link

xlink:href="&url.apt-get;">apt-get</link> to find packages for Debian.

</para>

</section>

<section xml:id="tutorial.firstpage">

<info><title>Your first PHP-enabled page</title></info>

<para>

Create a file named <filename>hello.php</filename> and put it

in your web server's root directory (<varname>DOCUMENT_ROOT</varname>)

with the following content:

</para>

<para>

<example>

<info><title>Our first PHP script: <filename>hello.php</filename></title></info>

<programlisting role="php">

</programlisting>

<simpara>

Use your browser to access the file with your web server's URL, ending

with the <literal>/hello.php</literal> file reference. When developing locally this

URL will be something like <literal>http://localhost/hello.php</literal>

or <literal>http://127.0.0.1/hello.php</literal> but this depends on the

web server's configuration. If everything is configured correctly, this

file will be parsed by PHP and you will see the "Hello World" output displayed

in your browser.

</simpara>

<simpara>

PHP can be embedded within a normal HTML web page. That means inside your HTML document

you can write the PHP statements, as demonstrated in the following example:

</simpara>

<programlisting role="php">

</programlisting>

<simpara>

This will result in the following output:

</simpara>

<screen role="html">

</screen>

</example>

</para>

<para>

This program is extremely simple and you really did not need to use

PHP to create a page like this. All it does is display:

<literal>Hello World</literal> using the PHP <function>echo</function>

statement. Note that the file <emphasis>does not need to be executable</emphasis>

or special in any way. The server finds out that this file needs to be interpreted

by PHP because you used the ".php" extension, which the server is configured

to pass on to PHP. Think of this as a normal HTML file which happens to have

a set of special tags available to you that do a lot of interesting things.

</para>

<para>

If you tried this example and it did not output anything, it prompted

for download, or you see the whole file as text, chances are that the

server you are on does not have PHP enabled, or is not configured properly.

Ask your administrator to enable it for you using the

<link linkend="install">Installation</link> chapter

of the manual. If you are developing locally, also read the

installation chapter to make sure everything is configured

properly. Make sure that you access the file via http with the server

providing you the output. If you just call up the file from your file

system, then it will not be parsed by PHP. If the problems persist anyway,

do not hesitate to use one of the many

<link xlink:href="&url.php.support;">PHP support</link> options.

</para>

<para>

The point of the example is to show the special PHP tag format.

In this example we used <literal>&lt;?php</literal> to indicate the

start of a PHP tag. Then we put the PHP statement and left PHP mode by

adding the closing tag, <literal>?&gt;</literal>. You may jump in

and out of PHP mode in an HTML file like this anywhere you want. For more

details, read the manual section on the <link linkend="language.basic-syntax">

basic PHP syntax</link>.

</para>

<note>

<info><title>A Note on Line Feeds</title></info>

<para>

Line feeds have little meaning in HTML, however it is still a good idea

to make your HTML look nice and clean by putting line feeds in. A

linefeed that follows immediately after a closing

<literal>?&gt;</literal> will be removed by PHP. This can be extremely

useful when you are putting in many blocks of PHP or include files

containing PHP that aren't supposed to output anything. At the same time

it can be a bit confusing. You can put a space after the closing

<literal>?&gt;</literal> to force a space and a line feed to be output,

or you can put an explicit line feed in the last echo/print from within

your PHP block.

</para>

</note>

<note>

<info><title>A Note on Text Editors</title></info>

<para>

There are many text editors and Integrated Development Environments (IDEs)

that you can use to create, edit and manage PHP files. A partial list of

these tools is maintained at <link xlink:href="&url.phpeditorlist;">PHP Editors

List</link>. If you wish to recommend an editor, please visit the above

page and ask the page maintainer to add the editor to the list. Having

an editor with syntax highlighting can be helpful.

</para>

</note>

<note>

<info><title>A Note on Word Processors</title></info>

<para>

Word processors such as StarOffice Writer, Microsoft Word and Abiword are

not optimal for editing PHP files. If you wish to use one for this

test script, you must ensure that you save the file as <emphasis>plain

text</emphasis> or PHP will not be able to read and execute the script.

</para>

</note>

<para>

Now that you have successfully created a working PHP script, it is

time to create the most famous PHP script! Make a call to the

<function>phpinfo</function> function and you will see a lot of useful

information about your system and setup such as available

<link linkend="language.variables.predefined">predefined variables</link>,

loaded PHP modules, and <link linkend="configuration">configuration</link>

settings. Take some time and review this important information.

</para>

<para>

<example>

<info><title>Get system information from PHP</title></info>

<programlisting role="php">

</programlisting>

</example>

</para>

</section>

<section xml:id="tutorial.useful">

<info><title>Something Useful</title></info>

<para>

Let us do something more useful now. We are going to check

what sort of browser the visitor is using.

For that, we check the user agent string the browser

sends as part of the HTTP request. This information is stored in a <link

linkend="language.variables">variable</link>. Variables always start

with a dollar-sign in PHP. The variable we are interested in right now

is <varname>$_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']</varname>.

</para>

<note>

<para>

<varname>$_SERVER</varname> is a

special reserved PHP variable that contains all web server information.

It is known as a superglobal. See the related manual page on

<link linkend="language.variables.superglobals">superglobals</link>

for more information.

</para>

</note>

<para>

To display this variable, you can simply do:

</para>

<para>

<example>

<info><title>Printing a variable (Array element)</title></info>

<programlisting role="php">

</programlisting>

<para>

A sample output of this script may be:

</para>

<screen role="html">

</screen>

</example>

</para>

<para>

There are many <link linkend="language.types">types</link> of

variables available in PHP. In the above example we printed an element

from an <link linkend="language.types.array">Array</link> variable.

Arrays can be very useful.

</para>

<para>

<varname>$_SERVER</varname> is just one variable that PHP automatically

makes available to you. A list can be seen in the

<link linkend="reserved.variables">Reserved Variables</link> section

of the manual or you can get a complete list of them by looking at

the output of the <function>phpinfo</function> function used in the

example in the previous section.

</para>

<para>

You can put multiple PHP statements inside a PHP tag and create

little blocks of code that do more than just a single echo.

For example, if you want to check for Firefox you

can do this:

</para>

<para>

<example>

<info><title>Example using <link linkend="language.control-structures">control

structures</link> and <link linkend="language.functions">functions</link></title></info>

<programlisting role="php">

</programlisting>

<para>

A sample output of this script may be:

</para>

<screen role="html">

</screen>

</example>

</para>

<para>

Here we introduce a couple of new concepts. We have an

<link linkend="control-structures.if">if</link> statement.

If you are familiar with the basic syntax used by the C

language, this should look logical to you. Otherwise, you

should probably pick up an introductory PHP book and read the first

couple of chapters, or read the <link linkend="langref">Language

Reference</link> part of the manual.

</para>

<para>

The second concept we introduced was the <function>str_contains</function>

function call. <function>str_contains</function> is a function built into

PHP which determines if a given string contains another string. In this case we are

looking for <literal>'Firefox'</literal> (so-called needle) inside

<varname>$_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']</varname> (so-called haystack). If

the needle is found inside the haystack, the function returns true. Otherwise, it

returns &false;. If it returns &true;, the <link

linkend="control-structures.if">if</link> expression evaluates to &true;

and the code within its {braces} is executed. Otherwise, the code is not

run. Feel free to create similar examples,

with <link linkend="control-structures.if">if</link>,

<link linkend="control-structures.else">else</link>, and other

functions such as <function>strtoupper</function> and

<function>strlen</function>. Each related manual page contains examples

too. If you are unsure how to use functions, you will want to read both

the manual page on <link linkend="about.prototypes">how to read a

function definition</link> and the section about

<link linkend="language.functions">PHP functions</link>.

</para>

<para>

We can take this a step further and show how you can jump in and out

of PHP mode even in the middle of a PHP block:

</para>

<para>

<example>

<info><title>Mixing both HTML and PHP modes</title></info>

<programlisting role="php">

</programlisting>

<para>

A sample output of this script may be:

</para>

<screen role="html">

</screen>

</example>

</para>

<para>

Instead of using a PHP echo statement to output something, we jumped out

of PHP mode and just sent straight HTML. The important and powerful point

to note here is that the logical flow of the script remains intact. Only

one of the HTML blocks will end up getting sent to the viewer depending on

the result of <function>str_contains</function>. In other words, it depends on

whether the string <literal>Firefox</literal> was found or not.

</para>

</section>

<section xml:id="tutorial.forms">

<info><title>Dealing with Forms</title></info>

<para>

One of the most powerful features of PHP is the way it handles HTML

forms. The basic concept that is important to understand is that any

form element will automatically be available to your PHP

scripts. Please read the manual section on

<link linkend="language.variables.external">Variables from external

sources</link> for more information and examples on using forms

with PHP. Here is an example HTML form:

</para>

<para>

<example>

<info><title>A simple HTML form</title></info>

<programlisting role="html">

</programlisting>

</example>

</para>

<para>

There is nothing special about this form. It is a straight HTML form

with no special tags of any kind. When the user fills in this form

and hits the submit button, the <filename>action.php</filename> page

is called. In this file you would write something like this:

</para>

<para>

<example>

<info><title>Printing data from our form</title></info>

<programlisting role="php">

</programlisting>

<para>

A sample output of this script may be:

</para>

<screen role="html">

</screen>

</example>

</para>

<para>

Apart from the <function>htmlspecialchars</function> and

<literal>(int)</literal> parts, it should be obvious what this does.

<function>htmlspecialchars</function> makes sure any characters that are

special in html are properly encoded so people can't inject HTML tags

or Javascript into your page. For the age field, since we know it is a

number, we can just <link linkend="language.types.typecasting">convert</link>

it to an <type>int</type> which will automatically get rid of any

stray characters. You can also have PHP do this for you automatically by

using the <link linkend="ref.filter">filter</link> extension.

The <varname>$_POST['name']</varname> and <varname>$_POST['age']</varname>

variables are automatically set for you by PHP. Earlier we

used the <varname>$_SERVER</varname> superglobal; above we just

introduced the <varname>$_POST</varname>

superglobal which contains all POST data. Notice how the

<emphasis>method</emphasis> of our form is POST. If we used the

method <emphasis>GET</emphasis> then our form information would live in

the <varname>$_GET</varname> superglobal instead.

You may also use the <varname>$_REQUEST</varname>

superglobal, if you do not care about the source of your request data. It

contains the merged information of GET, POST and COOKIE data.

</para>

</section>

<section xml:id="tutorial.whatsnext">

<info><title>What's next?</title></info>

<para>

With your new knowledge you should be able to understand most of

the manual and also the various example scripts available in the

example archives.

</para>

<para>

To view various slide presentations that show more of what PHP can do,

see the PHP Conference Material Site:

<link xlink:href="&url.php.talks;">&url.php.talks;</link>

</para>

</section>

</chapter>