1. Pradeep Tallogu Deepak Avanna Sharath Madathil
Tech Talk: PHP
Pradeep Tallogu
Deepak Avanna
Sharath Madathil

2. Overview What is PHP ? Server-side scripting Command line scripting
Client side GUI applications
Comparison with other similar technologies
Advantages
Disadvantages
Conclusion

3. Personal Home Page (PHP)
Development started in 1994, by Rasmus Lerdorf.
A project of the Apache Software Foundation
Open Source, free server-side HTML-embedded scripting language
Cross-platform, suitable for today's heterogeneous network environments
PHP's syntax resembles C and Perl and is easy to learn for any programmer with C or Perl background
Simpler and faster to develop in (than C and Perl)

4. What is PHP?
PHP is mainly focused on server-side scripting, so you can do anything any other CGI program can do, such as collect form data, generate dynamic page content, or send and receive cookies.

5. Server-side “Dynamic pages” Client-side “Active pages”
Where does PHP fit ?
Web
Server
server
Added functionality
Page
HTTP
Request
Internet or
Web
Intranet
Web Browser
Web
page
page
Server-side “Dynamic pages”
CGI, SSI, Server API, ASP, JSP, PHP, COM/DCOM, CORBA
Client-side “Active pages”
JavaScript, VBScript, Applet, ActiveX
Active and dynamic page technology can be used together – server-side program generates customized active pages.

6. Server-side execution using PHP Script
Web-Client
Web-Server
HTML-Form
WWW
Call PHP
interpreter
Submit
Form Data
Web-Browser
PHP
Script
Response
Response
Reply

7. Putting it all together
Web-Client
Database
Server
Web-Server
HTML-Form
(+JavaScript)
WWW
Call PHP
interpreter
Submit
Data
DBMS
LAN
Web-Browser
PHP
Script
SQL
commands
Response
Response
Database
Output
Reply

8. What more… Server-side scripting Command-line scripting
Writing client side GUI applications

9. Command Line PHP What is this good for: Variables of use:
Parsing files to put into a database
Ideal for scripts regularly executed using cron (on *nix or Linux) or Task Scheduler (on Windows).
Anything you’d use a shell script or perl script to do!
Variables of use:
$argc, $argv[]
$stdin, $stdout, $stderr

10. Client side GUI applications
PHP-GTK
Cross platform GUI applications
Screen-shot of GUI created by PHP-GTK

11. Code for the screenshot
// Add a GtkEntry class to our window $entry = &new GtkEntry(); $entry->set_text("Hello World"); $box->pack_start($entry); // Add a GtkButton class to our window $button = &new GtkButton("Reverse Text"); $button->connect("clicked", "reverseText", $entry); $box->pack_start($button); function reverseText($theButton, $theEntry) { $text = strrev($theEntry->get_text()); $theEntry->set_text($text); } // Show the window $window->show_all(); // Start the main PHP-GTK listener loop gtk::main(); ?>
<?php // Load the PHP-GTK extension $extension = "php_gtk" . (strpos(PHP_OS, "WIN") >= 0 ? ".dll" : ".so"); dl($extension); // Create a new window $window = &new GtkWindow(); $window->set_title("Test App"); $window->set_usize(300, 50); $window->set_position(GTK_WIN_POS_CENTER); $window->set_policy(false, false, false); // Set a callback function for the destroy signal $window->connect("destroy", "killwin"); function killwin() { echo("Window Destroyed!\n"); gtk::main_quit(); } // Add a GtkVBox class to our window $box = &new GtkVBox(); $window->add($box);

12. PHP vs. JSP PHP is faster in execution time
A recent survey in ZDnet's eWeek online publication found that PHP is as much as 3.5 times faster than JSP
Faster in development time – flatter learning curve
PHP supports any 32-bit or better platform, whereas JSP supports only platforms that have a Java virtual machine available
Because JSP is based on Java, a strongly typed language, we had to declare the types of variables we used and manually convert between types when necessary. This makes JSP the hardest of the scripting languages we tested for nonprogrammers to learn...
PHP is very easy to learn because the core language of PHP is quite small, and the constructs are similar to Javascript. As a bonus, many basic HTTP concepts are built into the language.

13. PHP vs. ASP PHP is faster Superior Memory Management
Closer to C Style of Programming
Cross Platform Migration Strategy
Dynamic generation of UI is more flexible

14. Benchmark
The following is a benchmark, where a Select statement is executed 40 times on Microsoft SQL Server 7 using PHP's MSSQL7 extension, PHP's ODBC extension and COM
PHP Querying MSSQL7
Seconds (lower is better)
Using MSSQL extension
01.88
Using ODBC extension
09.54
Using ODBC via
COM (ADO)
17.28
Using OLEDB via COM
6.19
The following benchmark, where we execute a Select statement 40 times on Microsoft SQL Server 7 using PHP's MSSQL7 extension, PHP's ODBC extension and COM

15. Advantages of PHP Light-weight Cross-platform compatible
Procedural / Object Oriented programming
Supports wide range of Databases
Supports wide variety of outputs
Supports wide variety of protocols
Extremely useful text processing features
Open source
Protocols: LDAP, IMAP, SNMP, NNTP, POP3, HTTP, COM etc…

16. Disadvantages of PHP Misperception on lack of Support.
Lack of IDE (Integrated Development Environment)
PHP has no formal error handling mechanisms.

17. Conclusion

18. References www.php.net www.webmonkey.com www.phpworld.com