PHP – general purpose programming language

PHP is the acronym for Hipertext Preprocessor. It is a free, platform independent, server-side programming language, fast, with a large library of functions and a lot of documentation.

PHP is written within the HTML code, which makes it really easy to use, just like Microsoft’s popular ASP, but with some advantages such as free, platform independence, speed and security. Anyone can download through the PHP home page www.php.net and free of charge, a module that makes our web server understand the scripts made in this language. It is platform independent, since there is a PHP module for almost any web server. This makes any system compatible with the language and represents an important advantage, since it allows porting the site developed in PHP from one system to another without practically any work.

PHP, in the case of being mounted on a Linux or Unix server, is faster than ASP, since it runs in a single memory space and this avoids the communications between COM components that are carried out between all the technologies involved in a page ASP.

Finally we pointed out the security, at this point it is also important the fact that on many occasions PHP is installed on Unix or Linux servers, which are well known as faster and safer than the operating system where the ASP is executed, Windows NT or 2000. In addition, PHP allows you to configure the server so that different uses are allowed or denied, which can make the language more or less secure depending on the needs of each one.

This programming language is prepared to carry out many types of web applications thanks to the extensive library of functions with which it is equipped. The library of functions covers from complex mathematical calculations to treatment of network connections, to give two examples.

Some of the most important capabilities of PHP are: compatibility with the most common databases, like MySQL, mSQL, Oracle, Informix, and ODBC, for example. It includes functions for sending e-mails, uploading files, dynamically creating images in GIF format on the server, even animated ones, and an endless list of additional utilities.

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