PHP start

Here we will write our first PHP code. And, after that some phrases about PHP variables.


Before you can work with PHP you need to install PHP on your computer if you haven’t installed PHP yet, now is a good time to install PHP.

First we will make a simple HTML page




Welcome to our first PHP tutorial.
 

Okay the above HTML page doesn't do anything special but just outputs Welcome to PHP tutorial on the browser, now lets add some PHP tags to it.

Note: All PHP code is written between  and ?> tags, now lets write "Welcome to our first PHP tutorial" using PHP.

   echo "Welcome to PHP tutorial";

?>

Okay the above PHP script will output Welcome to PHP tutorial note that we use the echo construct of PHP, the echo function simply outputs the content to the browser.

So if we wanted to write "Welcome" we would write echo "Welcome";

Note Have you noticed the ; at the end of the statment, Each PHP instruction must end with a semicolon.


Introduction to Variables
Let me introduce you to PHP variables, variables help you store and retrive data.

All variables start with a dollar sign $

The name of the variable can consist of letters and numbers, but must begin with a letter. It can also contain special characters like underscore '_', see some examples below

$site = 'phpbuddy.com' // valid variable
$4site = 'not yet'; // invalid variable starts with a number
$_4site = 'not yet'; // valid variable starts with an underscore 
Some more examples

$testvariable = 1 + 1; // Assigns a value of 2.
$testvariable = 1 – 1; // Assigns a value of 0.
$testvariable = 2 * 2; // Assigns a value of 4.
$testvariable = 2 / 2; // Assigns a value of 1. 
Okay to make things easier I will show you an example here we will create a variables $a, $b and multiply them and store the value in $c, just see it's so simple

$a = 5;  //we created a variable a and assigned it a value of 5

$b = 2;  //we created a variable b and assigned it a value of 2



$c = $a * $b;  //we multiply varaible a and b and store the value in c

echo $c;  //we print the content of variable c which is 10

?>

PHP variables can hold strings, dynamic data, PHP variables are case sensitive $a is not the same as $A

$a = "Welcome to PHP ";  //$a holds the string Welcome to PHP

$A = 4;  //$A holds the value 4



echo "Variable a conatains: $a";

echo "Variable A contains: $A";



echo "$a $A";  //outputs both variables $a and $A

?>