PHP stands for “PHP: Pre Hypertext Processor”, but it’s also still known around the world by its original name, Personal Home Page. It was created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1994.It’s the server-side programming language that’s taken the Web world by storm- PHP is far and away the most popular programming language for use on Web servers. That’s the idea behind PHP: being able to do some easy programming on the Web servers, creating everything from online databases to guest books, from customer
schedulers to chat rooms, from file uploading tools to shopping carts. It’s all possible with PHP. The PHP file may contain HTML tags and javascript.
ADVANTANGE OF PHP:
OPENSOURCE:
It’s free of cost. You can access the source code and you can use it , alter it, redistribute  it all without any charge. They can run on all the operating systems such as windows,Linux, etc.,
DATABASE INTEGRATION:
PHP has native connections available to may database systems. In addition to MySQL, you can directly connect to PostgreSQL, mSQL, Oracle, dbm, filePro, Hyperwave,InterBase, and Sybase databases, among others .Using the Open Database Connectivity Standard (ODBC), you can connect to any database that provides an ODBC driver. This includes Microsoft products, and many others.
BUILT-IN LIBRARIES:
Because PHP was designed for use on the Web, it has many built-in functions for performing many useful Web-related tasks. You can generate GIF images on-the-fly, connect to other network services, send email, work with cookies, and generate PDF documents, all with just a few lines of code.
LEARNING PHP:
The syntax of PHP is based on other programming languages, primarily C and Perl. If you already know C or Perl, or a C-like language such as C++ or Java, you will be productive using PHP almost immediately.
PORTABILITY:
PHP is available for many different operating systems. You can write PHP code on the free Unix like operating systems such as Linux and FreeBSD, commercial Unix versions such as Solaris and IRIX, or on different versions of Microsoft Windows.
SOURCECODE:
You have access to the source code of PHP. Unlike commercial, closed-source, products, if there is something you want modified or added to the language, you are free to do this. You do not need to wait for the manufacturer to release patches. You don’t need to worry about the manufacturer going out of business or deciding to stop supporting a product.
DISADVANTAGES:
If you want to do more than just HTML/CSS pages on the client you need to also add javascript, java or other client-side language in your output (goes for Perl and some other languages). The way browsers work make handling data and coding programs more interesting (technically each page is a new run on the system, so you have to manage your variables coming in and going out and between pages. Not hard, just different.) Web programming (regardless of language) is  open to security flaws due to unimplemented or unknown vulnerabilities, takes a bit more caution.

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