PHP is an open source, server side, HTML-embedded language.

In other words, you can program in PHP within a web page, and when the web page is called up by a visitor to your web site, the web server will run the PHP and pass the result to the visitor. PHP is rapidly becoming one of the major workhorses of the web.


PHP is different to VBScript or Perl or Java or C ... it's a language which at the outset was written to provide server side executable content in web pages; those other languages have merely been adapted to provide the functionality for the job.

It's a modern, open source language with a very rich function set - it's excellent at everything from character string handling (with full support for both POSIX and Perl-style regular expressions) through file handling to graphics and interfacing to relational databases.

In PHP, you don't write a whole block of code to perform some action that your sure has been done before - you search for an appropriate function in the manuals, or
on line at www.php.net; if you're a programmer in some other language, you might drool at these:

 function action

 file read a whole file into an array
 array_walk perform a function on every element of an array
 session_start start a session (see "state" article)
 fgetcsv read a comma separated line and split it into an array
 imagecreatefromjpeg load a JPEG image from a file
 imagecopymerge merge one image into another
 mysql_connect Establish a connection to a MySQL database
 nl2br Convert new line characters to <br> tags
 strip_tags remove HTML tags from a string of text



Let's see an example - in this example, we'll search a file containing a dictionary of over 45000 words for all words that match a particular pattern. The pattern is entered into a box on a form, which points to the following HTML page (with PHP embedded) on the server:


When run, you'll see a result like:

[file php.gif at this point].

Yes - a PHP page really can be that quick and easy!


The growth rate of PHP is phenomenal; according to the main PHP web site, it's now available on 7 million domains, which is up from just over 1 million at the beginning of last year. It can be run with both Apache and Microsoft servers, which between them now account for about 90% of the server market.

We use the image of a Shay locomotive to represent PHP. On old logging railroads, Shays were used as the motive power behind the trains which were used to push the trucks up the track from behind. What the Shays lacked in good looks they gained in practicality - they pushed the logging cars up gradients as steep as 1 in 9 (11%), climbing thousands of feet in a few miles, with every wheel driven via a gear chain that ran along one side of the locomotive.

Our pictures show Shay locomotives at work on the Cass Scenic Railroad in West Virginia; 6 times a week in summer, an excursion train is pushed from the town of Cass up 11 miles of track to the top of Bald Knob - the second highest mountain in the state at a height of 4842 feet. The Cass Scenic Railroad was 100 years old this year.


"Technology for PHP". 1 day. "PHP Programming". 3 day.
[Update - The PHP programming course has been extended to 4 days; as the language grew, so did the uses most people make of it and three days was no longer sufficient to cover what most people needed. For people who wish to go further and learn to use object orientation in PHP, we offer an extra day too.

Current links: "Technology for PHP". 1 day. http://www.wellho.net/course/phfull.html "PHP Programming". 4 days. http://www.wellho.net/course/pgfull.html "OO Programming in PHP". 1 day. http://www.wellho.net/course/pofull.html
If you've 3 or more members of staff who want to learn PHP at the same time, we'll run a special course for you at our place or yours - we bring all the equipment that's needed including servers - you just provide a room and the trainees.


See also PHP Course details

Please note that articles in this section of our web site were current and correct to the best of our ability when published, but by the nature of our business may go out of date quite quickly. The quoting of a price, contract term or any other information in this area of our website is NOT an offer to supply now on those terms - please check back via our main web site

PHP - General
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Introduction to PHP
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resource index - PHP
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You'll find shorter technical items at The Horse's Mouth and delegate's questions answered at the Opentalk forum.

At Well House Consultants, we provide training courses on subjects such as Ruby, Lua, Perl, Python, Linux, C, C++, Tcl/Tk, Tomcat, PHP and MySQL. We're asked (and answer) many questions, and answers to those which are of general interest are published in this area of our site.