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A variety of programming languages, tools, scripts, images and techniques are used to create and display Web pages. Web servers send commands to the browser, which renders the Web page on the screen. PHP is just one language programmers use for Web server programming.
Acronym
PHP is an acronym for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor." This type of acronym is called a recursive acronym, commonly used with open source software.
Definition
PHP is a programming script language that is used to process information on Web servers in order to create dynamic Web pages.
Operation
Programmers write commands according to a prescribed syntax in plain text. The PHP runtime package reads the commands and does the actual execution of the program.
Runtime Package
The runtime package is specific to an operating system or machine. This allows a PHP program written in plain text to run on any machine that has a PHP runtime package.
Syntax
Some elements of PHP are specific to itself, but much of the language syntax came from other languages like PERL, JAVA and C.
Why
PHP was created to give programmers a fast way to create Web pages that required programming without worrying about specific operating system- or hardware-specific platforms.
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