PHP is a general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited to server-side web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by the PHP Group. PHP stands for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor," which is a recursive initialism.
PHP scripts are executed on the server, usually to create dynamic web page content or dynamic images used on websites or elsewhere. PHP can also be used for command-line scripting and client-side graphical user interface (GUI) applications. PHP files can contain text, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP code. PHP code is executed on the server, generating HTML which is then sent to the client. PHP can generate dynamic page content, create, open, read, write, delete, and close files on the server, collect form data, send and receive cookies, add, delete, modify data in your database, and be used to control user-access.
PHP is a widely-used, open-source scripting language that is free to download and use. It is powerful enough to be at the core of the biggest blogging system on the web (WordPress) and deep enough to run large social networks. PHP is also easy enough to be a beginners first server-side language. PHP is versatile and regularly updated to follow the latest technology trends. PHP has extensive community documentation available for free that provides information for users of all levels. Despite the debate on whether it’s still valuable, PHP remains a relevant and widely-used language in web development.
