05php

PHP
Most of this is from the PHP
manual online at:
http://www.php.net/manual/

What we'll cover
• A short history of php
• Parsing
• Variables
• Arrays
• Operators
• Functions
• Control Structures
• External Data Files

Background
• PHP is server side scripting system
• PHP stands for "PHP: Hypertext
Preprocessor"
• Syntax based on Perl, Java, and C
• Very good for creating dynamic content
• Powerful, but somewhat risky!
• If you want to focus on one system for
dynamic content, this is a good one to
choose

History
• Started as a Perl hack in 1994 by Rasmus
Lerdorf (to handle his resume), developed to
PHP/FI 2.0
• By 1997 up to PHP 3.0 with a new parser
engine by Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans
• Version 5.2.4 is current version, rewritten by
Zend (www.zend.com) to include a number of
features, such as an object model
• Current is version 5
• php is one of the premier examples of what
an open source project can be

About Zend
• A Commercial Enterprise
• Zend provides Zend engine for PHP for free
• They provide other products and services for
a fee
• Server side caching and other optimizations
• Encoding in Zend's intermediate format to protect
source code
• IDE-a developer's package with tools to make life
easier
• Support and training services
• Zend's web site is a great resource

PHP 5 Architecture
• Zend engine as parser (Andi Gutmans and Zeev
Suraski)
• SAPI is a web server abstraction layer
• PHP components now self contained
(ODBC, Java, LDAP, etc.)
• This structure is a good general design for software
(compare to OSI model, and middleware
applications)
image from http://www.zend.com/zend/art/intro.ph

PHP Scripts
• Typically file ends in .php--this is set by the
web server configuration
• Separated in files with the <?php ?> tag
• php commands can make up an entire file, or
can be contained in html--this is a choice….
• Program lines end in ";" or you get an error
• Server recognizes embedded script and
executes
• Result is passed to browser, source isn't
visible
<P>
<?php $myvar = "Hello World!";
echo $myvar;
?>
</P>

Parsing
• We've talk about how the browser can read a
text file and process it, that's a basic parsing
method
• Parsing involves acting on relevant portions
of a file and ignoring others
• Browsers parse web pages as they load
• Web servers with server side technologies
like php parse web pages as they are being
passed out to the browser
• Parsing does represent work, so there is a
cost

Two Ways
• You can embed sections of php inside
html:
• Or you can call html from php:
<BODY>
<P>
<?php $myvar = "Hello World!";
echo $myvar;
</BODY>
<?php
echo "<html><head><title>Howdy</title>
…
?>

What do we know already?
• Much of what we learned about
javascript holds true in php (but not
all!), and other languages as well
$name = "bil";
echo "Howdy, my name is $name";
echo "What will $name be in this line?";
echo 'What will $name be in this line?';
echo 'What's wrong with this line?';
if ($name == "bil")
{
// Hey, what's this?
echo "got a match!";
}

Variables
• Typed by context (but one can force
type), so it's loose
• Begin with "$" (unlike javascript!)
• Assigned by value
• $foo = "Bob"; $bar = $foo;
• Assigned by reference, this links vars
• $bar = &$foo;
• Some are preassigned, server and env vars
• For example, there are PHP vars, eg.
PHP_SELF, HTTP_GET_VARS 00

phpinfo()
• The phpinfo() function shows the php
environment
• Use this to read system and server
variables, setting stored in
php.ini, versions, and modules
• Notice that many of these data are in
arrays
• This is the first script you should write…
00_phpinfo.php

Variable Variables
• Using the value of a variable as the
name of a second variable)
$a = "hello";
$$a = "world";
• Thus:
echo "$a ${$a}";
• Is the same as:
echo "$a $hello";
• But $$a echoes as "$hello"….
00_hello_world.php

Operators
• Arithmetic (+, -, *, /, %) and String (.)
• Assignment (=) and combined assignment
$a = 3;
$a += 5; // sets $a to 8;
$b = "Hello ";
$b .= "There!"; // sets $b to "Hello
There!";
• Bitwise (&, |, ^, ~, <<, >>)
• $a ^ $b (Xor: Bits that are set in
$a or $b but not both are set.)
• ~ $a (Not: Bits that are set in $a
are not set, and vice versa.)
• Comparison (==, ===, !=, !==, <, >, <=, >=)

Coercion
• Just like javascript, php is loosely typed
• Coercion occurs the same way
• If you concatenate a number and
string, the number becomesa string
17_coercion.php

Operators: The Movie
• Error Control (@)
• When this precedes a command, errors generated are
ignored (allows custom messages)
• Execution (` is similar to the shell_exec()
function)
• You can pass a string to the shell for execution:
$output = `ls -al`;
$output = shell_exec("ls -al");
• This is one reason to be careful about user set variables!
• Incrementing/Decrementing
++$a (Increments by one, then returns $a.)
$a++ (Returns $a, then increments $a by
one.)
--$a (Decrements $a by one, then
returns $a.)
$a-- (Returns $a, then decrements $a

Son of the Valley of Operators
• Logical
$a and $b And True if both $a and $b
are true.
$a or $b Or True if either $a or $b is
true.
$a xor $b Xor True if either $a or $b
is true,
but not both.
! $a Not True if $a is not true.
$a && $b And True if both $a and $b are
true.
$a || $b Or True if either $a or $b is
true.
• The two ands and ors have different
precedence rules, "and" and "or" are
lower precedence than "&&" and "||"
• Use parentheses to resolve precedence

Control Structures
• Wide Variety available
• if, else, elseif
• while, do-while
• for, foreach
• break, continue, switch
• require, include, require_once, include_onc
e

Control Structures
• Mostly parallel to what we've covered
already in javascript
• if, elseif, else, while, for, foreach, break
and continue

Switch
• Switch, which we've seen, is very useful
• These two do the same
things….
example from http://us3.php.net/manual/en/control-structures.switch
if ($i == 0) {
echo "i equals 0";
} elseif ($i == 1) {
echo "i equals 1";
} elseif ($i == 2) {
echo "i equals 2";
}
switch ($i) {
case 0:
echo "i equals 0";
break;
case 1:
echo "i equals 1";
break;
case 2:
echo "i equals 2";
break;
}

Nesting Files
• require(), include(), include_once(), require_once(
) are used to bring in an external file
• This lets you use the same chunk of code in a
number of pages, or read other kinds of files into
your program
• Be VERY careful of using these anywhere close
to user input--if a hacker can specify the file to be
included, that file will execute within your
script, with whatever rights your script has
(readfile is a good alternative if you just want the
file, but don't need to execute it)

Example: A Dynamic Table
• I hate writing html tables
• You can build one in php
• This example uses pictures and builds a
table with pictures in one column, and
captions in another
• The captions are drawn from text files
• I'm using tables, but you could use css
for placement easily…

Arrays
• You can create an array with the array function, or use
the explode function (this is very useful when reading
files into web programs…)
$my_array = array(1, 2, 3, 4, 5);
$pizza = "piece1 piece2 piece3 piece4
piece5 piece6";
$pieces = explode(" ", $pizza);
• An array is simply a variable representing a keyed list
• A list of values or variables
• If a variable, that var can also be an array
• Each variable in the list has a key
• The key can be a number or a text label

• Arrays are lists, or lists of lists, or list of lists of
lists, you get the idea--Arrays can be multi-
dimensional
• Array elements can be addressed by either by
number or by name (strings)
• If you want to see the structure of an
array, use the print_r function to recursively
print an array inside of pre tags
Arrays

Text versus Keys
• Text keys work like number keys
(well, really, it's the other way around--
number keys are just labels)
• You assign and call them the same
way, except you have to assign the label
to the value or variables, eg:
echo "$my_text_array[third]";
$my_text_array = array(first=>1, seco
echo "<pre>";
print_r($my_text_array);
echo "</pre>";

Walking Arrays
• Use a loop, eg a foreach loop to walk
through an array
• while loops also work for arrays with
numeric keys--just set a variable for the
loop, and make sure to increment that
variable within the loop
$colors = array('red', 'blue', 'green'
foreach ($colors as $color) {
echo "Do you like $color?n";
}
05_arrays.php

05_arrays.php
• You can't echo an
array directly…
• You can walk
through an echo or
print() line by line
• You can use
print_r(), this will
show you the
structure of complex
arrays--that output
is to the right, and
it's handy for
Array
(
[1] => Array
(
[sku] =>
[quantit
[item] =
[price]
)
[2] => Array
(
[sku] =>
[quantit
[item] =
[price]
)

Multidimensional Arrays
• A one dimensional array is a list, a spreadsheet or other
columnar data is two dimensional…
• Basically, you can make an array of arrays
$multiD = array
(
"fruits" => array("myfavorite" =>
"orange", "yuck" => "banana", "yum" => "apple"),
"numbers" => array(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6),
"holes" => array("first", 5 =>
"second", "third")
);
• The structure can be built array by array, or declared with a
single statement
• You can reference individual elements by nesting:
echo "<p>Yes, we have no " .
$multiD["fruits"]["yuck"] . " (ok by01a_arrays.php

Getting Data into arrays
• You can directly read data into
individual array slots via a direct
assignment:
$pieces[5] = "poulet resistance";
• From a file:
• Use the file command to read a delimited
file (the delimiter can be any unique char):
$pizza = file(./our_pizzas.txt)
• Use explode to create an array from a line
within a loop:
$pieces = explode(" ", $pizza);

The Surface
• The power of php lies partially in the wealth of
functions---for example, the 40+ array
functions
• array_flip() swaps keys for values
• array_count_values() returns an associative array
of all values in an array, and their frequency
• array_rand() pulls a random element
• array_unique() removes duppies
• array_walk() applies a user defined function to
each element of an array (so you can dice all of a
dataset)
• count() returns the number of elements in an array
• array_search() returns the key for the first match in08_array_fu.php

Using External Data
• You can build dynamic pages with just
the information in a php script
• But where php shines is in building
pages out of external data sources, so
that the web pages change when the
data does
• Most of the time, people think of a
database like MySQL as the
backend, but you can also use text or
other files, LDAP, pretty much
anything….

Standard data files
• Normally you'd use a tab delimited file, but you
can use pretty much anything as a delimiter
• Files get read as arrays, one line per slot
• Remember each line ends in n, you should
clean this up, and be careful about white
space
• Once the file is read, you can use explode to
break the lines into fields, one at a time, in a
loop….

Standard data files
• You can use trim() to clean white space and
returns instead of str_replace()
• Notice that this is building an array of arrays
$items=file("./mydata.tx
t");
foreach ($items as
$line)
{
$line =
str_replace("n", "",

Useful string functions
• str_replace()
• trim(), ltrim(), rtrim()
• implode(), explode()
• addslashes(), stripslashes()
• htmlentities(), html_entity_decode(), htm
lspecialchars()
• striptags()

06_more_arrays.php
• This is a simple script to read and process a
text file
• The data file is tab delimited and has the
column titles as the first line of the file

How it works
• The script uses the first line to build text
labels for the subsequent lines, so that the
array elements can be called by the text label
• If you add a new column, this script
compensates
• Text based arrays are not position
dependent…
• This script could be the basis of a nice
function
• There are two version of this, calling two
different datafiles, but that's the only

06a_more_arrays.php
• This version shows how to dynamically build a table
in the html output

Alternative syntax
• Applies to if, while, for, foreach, and
switch
• Change the opening brace to a colon
• Change the closing brace to an endxxx
statement
sample code from http://us3.php.net/manual/en/control-structures.alternative-synt
<?php if ($a == 5): ?>
A is equal to 5
<?php endif; ?>
<?php
if ($a == 5):
echo "a equals 5";
echo "...";
else:
echo "a is not 5";
endif;
?> 07

Sources
• http://www.zend.com/zend/art/intro.php
• http://www.php.net/
• http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/pr
ogramming/php/index.html

05php

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