PHP

PHP,

Originally developed in 1994 as Personal Hope Page Tools by author Rasmus Lerdorf, php has grown into a complete and extensible environment for developing complex web sites. Versions of php run on all major operating systems, including Linux, Windows and Macintosh OS.

At its most basic level, php code can be embedded in web pages, and executed by a web server, to include up-to-date data, such as news, advertising, photos, etc, into a web page when it is requested by a user. Additionally, php can interface with a variety of backend database servers, including mySQL, to develop web sites that offer a customized user experience, by dynamically generating all pages based on information stored in a database. Examples include web sites that allow users to customize pages according to their location, news preferences and almost any other criteria, depending on the programming

php is also used to develop entire web-based systems that operate more like common desktop software applications than typical static web pages. Such applications include MediaWiki (the software used to operate the Wikipedia), SugarCRM (a customer relationship management package) and the well-known blogging software, WordPress.

Many extensions exist for php and allow it to access Internet services such as ftp, cURL and file compression as well as generate Adobe Flash and PDF files directly from within php applications.

php is a major part of the LAMP architecture (which is a grouping of programs Linux, Apache, mySQL and php) often used together to create large, scalable web applications.