Oracle Database Tips by Donald Burleson

PHP

PHP is an embedded language similar to Perl. Its name stands for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor". While it is not necessary to understand Perl before reading this book or developing software application, it is helpful to have a working knowledge of Perl.

PHP is a weakly typed language in which variables are preceded by a dollar sign and embedded into HTML.  Like HTML tags, PHP scripts are enclosed with delimiters. They start with <?php  and end with ?>.  A traditional introductory example could be a Hello World program:

Example 1:

    <?php
                  $greeting="Hello World!";
                  print $greeting;
                  ?>

Although the variable $greetingcontains a string "Hello World!", its type has not been declared anywhere. A number or a connection could have easily been assigned to an Oracle database and assigned to the variable $greeting.  Thus, when displayed in a browser, the program gives the result shown below:

Now that the most famous program in any language has been rewritten in PHP, it is time to learn the basics.  For the curious, the following URL describes "Hello World" in most of the world's computer languages.  Sadly, PHP was not included.

http://www2.latech.edu/~acm/HelloWorld.shtml

What is the allure of PHP? PHP is executed completely on the server side. It is embedded in the HTML language and is exceptionally easy to program. In version 5, it has all the ingredients of a major OO (Object Oriented) language. It supports inheritance, interfaces, constructors and destructors, public, and private and protected class members.

Any programmer who knows how to use Java or C++ will not have any trouble with OO concepts in PHP.  It is also a much simpler and more standardized way of supporting OO programming than the method chosen by the designers of Perl.

The first two chapters of this book present a brief introduction to PHP. This chapter contains the following sections:

• Basics - This section describes operators, expressions and variables.

• Data types - This section describes Boolean type, strings and arrays.

• Statements- This section describes conditional statement, loops and loop control statement.

• Functions - This section describes PHP super-globals and useful functions.

See code depot for complete scripts

This is an excerpt from the book Easy Oracle PHP.  You can get it for more than 30% by buying it directly from the publisher and get instant HTML-DB scripts from the code depot:

Easy Oracle PHP Create Dynamic Web Pages with Oracle Data Includes online HTML-DB code depot Buy it now for 30% off - Only $19.95

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HTML-DB support:

For HTML-DB development support just call to gat an Oracle Certified professional for all HTML-DB development projects.