What is PHP?
Hypertext Preprocessor (commonly known as PHP) is a general-purpose programming language originally designed for web development. PHP was at first created as a simple scripting platform called “Personal Home Page“. Nowadays PHP is an alternative of the Microsoft’s Active Server Pages (ASP) technology.
PHP is used for making dynamic websites. It can be embedded into HTML. HTML and CSS only provide structure and styling. PHP is a server side language, meaning it is not understood by any browser. PHP can tell you the time, translate information, do math, connect to databases and many more. Its an open source language which means you don’t need a license to work with it. It has the ability to generate HTML, loop over sections of content based on conditions, ask the computer questions and similar programming functions. PHP is usually used in conjunction with a MySQL database on Linux/UNIX web servers. It is probably the most popular scripting language. PHP files have extension “.php“
One of the most important things about using PHP is to have a PHP specialized host. Here are some of the things we at SiteGround can offer:
- We have long experience in providing technical support for PHP-based web sites. Thanks to it our servers are perfectly optimized to offer the best overall performance for most PHP applications.
- We offer a lot of free PHP management tools including CMS systems, forums, galleries, blogs, shopping carts and more.
- We provide multiple versions of PHP on a per-folder basis.
We are always one of the first to offer the newest PHP versions to our clients.
It is powerful enough to be at the core of the biggest blogging system on the web (WordPress) and it is deep enough to run the largest social network (Facebook). It is also easy enough to be a beginner’s first server side language!
What Can PHP Do?
- PHP can generate dynamic page content
- PHP can create, open, read, write, delete, and close files on the server
- PHP can collect form data
- PHP can send and receive cookies
- PHP can add, delete, modify data in your database
- PHP can be used to control user-access
- PHP can encrypt data
With PHP you are not limited to output HTML. You can output images, PDF files, and even Flash movies. You can also output any text, such as XHTML and XML.
The present version of PHP is version 7.
Why you should be excited about PHP7?
PHP 7 had been released in 2015 with a huge number of bug fixes and advancement. It has conveyed to us noteworthy executional help and new dialect highlights. On the off chance that you are a PHP web designer and running your website on PHP empowered CMS like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal or Magento, then, bounce into PHP7 which is quick, adaptable, down to earth and powers everything on the planet.
Begin investigating PHP7 and stretch out beyond the bend by downloading it today without agonizing over conditions. The latest released version is PHP 7.1.29 was released on 3rd May, 2019. All PHP 7.1 users are encouraged to upgrade to this version.
Here is the outline of a portion of the elements and enhancements that will surely interest you:
Execution Improvements
The most unmistakable advantage of PHP7 is its speed. It depends on PHPNG extend, which expands execution and guarantee speedy appropriation so that from a similar equipment more clients can be facilitated. Update your PHP7 and increase gigantic execution which shifts in the vicinity of 25% and 70% of certifiable applications without changing any line of code.
Scalar Type Hints
Scalar sort insights give designers the capacity to characterize the arrival kind of capacities and techniques. New Scalar sorts are currently bolstered by the new return sort affirmations and contention sort insights. You can guarantee great information consistency of a technique or capacity interface. The coercive mode is empowered as a matter, of course, limiting PHP from tossing a sort mistake.
Return Type Hints
PHP7 highlights Return Type Hints which underpins every single same sort as contentions. Return sort indications guarantee yield consistency and to imply the arrival sort we utilize a colon earlier the opening wavy prop of a capacity. Pronouncing return sorts averts unintended return values and sub-sorts, particularly in interfaces from breaking the normal return kind of the super-sort.
Evacuation of Deprecated Items
The most recent discharged has evacuated a huge number of dead server APIs, belittled components and augmentations to make PHP run snappier. To keep engineers from delivering their own unreliable salts, the salt alternative has been censured for the watchword hash (). ASP style labels, MYSQL augmentations, and PHP4 style constructors have been evacuated to support PHP speed.
New Operators
PHP7 thinks of two new administrators, the consolidated examination administrator, and the invalid blend administrator. The consolidated correlation administrator is utilized generally when managing to sort and can be utilized with any two operands while the invalid blend administrator is a shorthand to check inside inline examinations if an esteem is set and not invalid.
Memory Usage Improvements
Memory sparing, a noteworthy element of this variant, was exhibited, PHP 7 uses around 3.5 circumstances less memory on 64bit (LP64) and 2.5 circumstances on 32bit. With decreased memory utilization, there will be venturing up in the execution as the prime reason for its change relies on the advancement of inward information structure.
PHP7 has brought greatly wanted changes and upgrades in its motor for improving execution, subsequently settling on it the ecologically solid decision. On the off chance that you are running a considerable measure of servers than changing on to this adaptation will be the best choice. Like every single significant insurgency, PHP 7 is as yet far off yet here’s sufficient time to end up noticeably the ruler of programming dialect until then hang on and appreciate the current components.