PHP Web Hosting

What is PHP Web Hosting?

From the PHP website: "PHP is a server-side, cross-platform, HTML embedded scripting language." Here's an explanation of what this definition means:

• Server-Side: This means that PHP scripts execute on the web server, not within the browser on your local machine.
• Cross-Platform: Cross-platform means that PHP scripts can run on many different web servers and operating systems, primarily Windows/IIS and Unix/Apache.
• HTML Embedded Scripting Language: This means PHP statements and commands are actually embedded in your HTML documents. When the web server sees the PHP statements in the webpage, the server executes the statements and sends the resulting output along with the rest of the HTML.

All of the low cost providers in our Comparison Chart offer PHP scripting capabilities with each account.

What Can You Do with PHP?

Like most other server-side scripting languages, PHP is excellent for creating dynamic websites based on database content or different characteristics of Internet browsers. Through the use of external libraries and functions, PHP can:

• Build templates to ease website maintenance.
• Serve different website content to users based on their browser, IP address, date and time, or numerous other characteristics.
• Conduct online surveys, build discussion forums and operate web-based e-mail programs.
• Connect databases like Oracle or MySQL to the Web, and process XML.

If you don't already have a copy, you can download it at the official PHP.net web site. PHP is open source software that is completely free to use. You can also find a manual at PHP.net that documents all of PHP's functions and features.

PHP Web Hosting & MySQL Databases

Combining PHP scripts and MySQL databases has become the #1 means for creating dynamically-operated websites. This is due to the fact that PHP is free and available with almost any hosting provider (Unix or Windows). The alternatives to PHP, such as ASP and Coldfusion, are limited to Windows for the most part, or are proprietary and cost extra, like Sun's Java Server Pages (JSP).

A great place to further your understanding of how PHP and MySQL work together is SitePoint. You can also purchase a great book on operating PHP/MySQL sites from there (the cost is around $35).