PHP in its most basic sense is a scripting language. When it was first developed, the aim was to develop a language for web development. The main job of PHP is to create dynamic web pages. Dynamic web pages are those web pages whose content are created dynamically, every time a client requests a page. The contents are loaded in run time. PHP is the language that is used to script such pages. Hence, the scripting code has to be written as a part of the HTML code which acts as the source code. It is the job of the server to interpret the source code. This interpretation is possible if the server has an explicit PHP processor module inbuilt in it. By using this module, the web server produces the document that is viewed at the client side.

PHP has been developed further. A command-line interface has been built into it so that remote machines can be provided with web pages that have more advanced graphics. One of its major advantages is that, it can be used across machines that are part of a complex network or standalone. It can be obtained for free on the internet. PHP can be used with almost all operating systems. It can be deployed on 32-bit machines as well as 64-bit machines. The working of PHP is very similar to the Active Server Pages from the house of Microsoft. In fact, these two languages bear close competition with each other, with PHP having a few technical advantages.

The creator of the first version of PHP is Rasmus Lerdorf. It was released in the 1995. Over the years The PHP Group has been created and it manages a common standard for PHP Scripting Language across the globe. This is required because PHP does not have any formal rules that need to be followed specifically. This software is released under a license called the PHP license and is available for free. When this language was first developed it was named Personal Home Page or PHP, however after a few developed versions PHP is the acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. It got its developed name after its third version PHP 3 in 1997.

The third installment was followed by PHP 4 in 2005 and PHP 5 in 2008. The fifth version has been further developed into sub versions, as in PHP 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3. Late static binding was a feature that was not present in the earlier versions of this software. IT was added in PHP 5.3. PHP 5 has been proven to be the most stable format of this software, used by almost 20 million users across the globe. Developers have been working on PHP 5.4. Developers have aimed to arm this version with complete Unicode assistance. However, this is a very complex feature, which will need few more years and hence it might be added to the PHP 6. At present PHP 5.4 is being developed.

The new codes of PHP do not include the safe mode. Along with this the global registers that were used in earlier versions is also being removed. Magic quotes which used to be absolutely unpredictable are also not a part of this software anymore. The presence of register global had led to issues related to security. Add slashes () are used in place of magic quotes. This function is not unpredictable like its predecessor.

Cathy, Professional writer for otssolutions.com provides information on PHP Application Development, PHP Zend Framework Development and more.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6368100