Both PHP and MySQL are popular web hosting applications. It is safe to say that both PHP and MySQL are essential components when it comes to running the popular Content Management Systems. A prime example of the popularity and the essentialness of PHP and MySQL can be seen within Wikipedia. This is because wiki runs on what is known as Mediawiki software; this software is wrote using PHP script and uses a MySQL database.
So what exactly is PHP and MySQL?
PHP (a recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Pre-processor) is a form of computer scripting language, which was originally designed for the production of dynamic web pages. It is a widely used general purpose scripting language, which is especially suited for web development as it can easily be embedded into HTML and generally runs on a web server, taking PHP code as its input and creating web pages as output. It can be deployed on most web servers and on almost every operating system and platform free of charge. So far it is safe to say that PHP is installed on more than 20 million websites as well as one million web servers. PHP is also the most popular Apache module among computers using Apache as a web server. Apache is primarily used to serve both static content and dynamic Web pages on the World Wide Web. Many web applications are designed expecting the environment and features that Apache provides.
Recently, on May 1st 2008 the most major release of PHP came out, which is version 5.2.6. This version, as with previous versions can be developed on most web servers as well as many operating systems and platforms; it can also be used with many relational database management systems. Also the PHP Group provides the complete source code, which allows users to build and customise as well as extend it to fit their own use.
PHP’s programming syntax is very similar to that of a programme called Perl and due to the elegant design used, PHP makes it possible for anyone to learn how to use it. Also, unlike other scripting languages, PHP supports the most common databases like Oracle, Sybase and MySQL. It is also possible to integrate external libraries to generate PDF documents or parsing XML. PHP is an open-source language and is supported by a large group of developers.
MySQL
MySQL is a database management system. MySQL is what is known as an Open Source SQL database, SQL is a standard interactive and programming language for querying and modifying data and managing databases. MySQL is very fast, reliable, and easy to use. It also has a very practical set of features developed in very close cooperation with its users. When MySQL was originally developed it was done so as a way of handling very large databases, which are much faster than existing solutions and have been successfully used in highly demanding production environments for many years. MySQL is also one programme that is under constant development and today MySQL offers a rich and very useful set of functions. The connectivity, speed and security that are brought to you by MySQL makes it highly suited for accessing databases on the Internet. It has more than 11 million installations and runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases.
