3. A simple tutorial

Here we would like to show the very basics of PHP in a short, simple
tutorial. This text only deals with dynamic webpage creation with PHP, though
PHP is not only capable of creating webpages. See the section titled What can PHP do for more information.

PHP-enabled web pages are treated just like regular HTML pages and you can
create and edit them the same way you normally create regular HTML pages.

What do I need?

In this tutorial we assume that your server has activated support for PHP and
that all files ending in .php are handled by PHP. On
most servers, this is the default extension for PHP files, but ask your server
administrator to be sure. If your server supports PHP, then you do not need to
do anything. Just create your .php files, put them in
your web directory and the server will automatically parse them for you. There
is no need to compile anything nor do you need to install any extra tools. Think
of these PHP-enabled files as simple HTML files with a whole new family of
magical tags that let you do all sorts of things. Most web hosts offer PHP
support, but if your host does not, consider reading the PHP Links section for
resources on finding PHP enabled web hosts.

Let us say you want to save precious bandwidth and develop locally. In this
case, you will want to install a web server, such as Apache, and of course PHP. You will most
likely want to install a database as well, such as MySQL.

You can either install these individually or choose a simpler way. Our manual
has installation instructions for PHP (assuming you
already have some webserver set up). In case you have problems with installing
PHP yourself, we would suggest you ask your questions on our installation mailing
list. If you choose to go on the simpler route, then locate a pre-configured package for your operating system, which
automatically installs all of these with just a few mouse clicks. It is easy to
setup a web server with PHP support on any operating system, including MacOSX,
Linux and Windows. On Linux, you may find rpmfind and PBone helpful for locating RPMs. You may also want to visit apt-get to find packages for
Debian.