2006-06-25
Copyright © 1997-2006 the PHP Documentation Group
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 - 2006 by the PHP Documentation Group. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later. A copy of the Open Publication License is distributed with this manual, the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/.
Distribution of substantively modified versions of this document is prohibited without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.
Distribution of the work or derivative of the work in any standard (paper) book form is prohibited unless prior permission is obtained from the copyright holder.
In case you are interested in redistribution or republishing of this document in whole or in part, either modified or unmodified, and you have questions, please contact the copyright holders at doc-license@lists.php.net. Note that this address is mapped to a publicly archived mailing list.
The Chapter 46 section of the documentation is based on an initial contribution by Zend Technologies.
PHP, which stands for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor" is a widely-used Open Source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. Its syntax draws upon C, Java, and Perl, and is easy to learn. The main goal of the language is to allow web developers to write dynamically generated webpages quickly, but you can do much more with PHP.
This manual consists primarily of a function reference, but also contains a language reference, explanations of some of PHP's major features, and other supplemental information.
You can download this manual in several formats at http://www.php.net/download-docs.php. More information about how this manual is developed can be found in the 'About the manual' appendix. If you are interested in the history of PHP, visit the relevant appendix.
We highlight the currently most active people on the manual frontpage, but there are many more contributors who currently help in our work or provided a great amount of help to the project in the past. There are a lot of unnamed people who help out with their user notes on manual pages, which continually get included in the references, the work of whom we are also very thankful for. All the lists provided below are in alphabetical order.
The following contributors should be recognized for the impact they have made and/or continue to make by adding content to the manual: Jouni Ahto, Alexander Aulbach, Daniel Beckham, Stig Bakken, Jesus M. Castagnetto, Ron Chmara, Sean Coates, John Coggeshall, Simone Cortesi, Markus Fischer, Wez Furlong, Sara Golemon, Rui Hirokawa, Brad House, Moriyoshi Koizumi, Rasmus Lerdorf, Andrew Lindeman, Stanislav Malyshev, Rafael Martinez, Yasuo Ohgaki, Derick Rethans, Sander Roobol, Egon Schmid, Thomas Schoefbeck, Sascha Schumann, Dan Scott, Lars Torben Wilson, Jim Winstead, Jeroen van Wolffelaar and Andrei Zmievski.
The following contributors have done significant work editing the manual: Stig Bakken, Gabor Hojtsy, Hartmut Holzgraefe and Egon Schmid.
The currently most active maintainers are: Mehdi Achour, Friedhelm Betz, Vincent Gevers, Aidan Lister, Nuno Lopes and Tom Sommer.
These people have also put a lot of effort into managing user notes: Daniel Beckham, Victor Boivie, Jesus M. Castagnetto, Nicolas Chaillan, Ron Chmara, James Cox, Sara Golemon, Zak Greant, Szabolcs Heilig, Oliver Hinckel, Hartmut Holzgraefe, Rasmus Lerdorf, Andrew Lindeman, Maxim Maletsky, James Moore, Sebastian Picklum, Derick Rethans, Sander Roobol, Damien Seguy, Jason Sheets, Jani Taskinen, Yasuo Ohgaki, Philip Olson, Lars Torben Wilson, Jim Winstead, Jared Wyles and Jeroen van Wolffelaar.
PHP (recursive acronym for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor") is a widely-used Open Source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML.
Simple answer, but what does that mean? An example:
Notice how this is different from a script written in other languages like Perl or C -- instead of writing a program with lots of commands to output HTML, you write an HTML script with some embedded code to do something (in this case, output some text). The PHP code is enclosed in special start and end tags that allow you to jump into and out of "PHP mode".
What distinguishes PHP from something like client-side JavaScript is that the code is executed on the server. If you were to have a script similar to the above on your server, the client would receive the results of running that script, with no way of determining what the underlying code may be. You can even configure your web server to process all your HTML files with PHP, and then there's really no way that users can tell what you have up your sleeve.
The best things in using PHP are that it is extremely simple for a newcomer, but offers many advanced features for a professional programmer. Don't be afraid reading the long list of PHP's features. You can jump in, in a short time, and start writing simple scripts in a few hours.
Although PHP's development is focused on server-side scripting, you can do much more with it. Read on, and see more in the What can PHP do? section, or go right to the introductory tutorial if you are only interested in web programming.
Anything. 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. But PHP can do much more.
There are three main areas where PHP scripts are used.
Server-side scripting. This is the most traditional and main target field for PHP. You need three things to make this work. The PHP parser (CGI or server module), a webserver and a web browser. You need to run the webserver, with a connected PHP installation. You can access the PHP program output with a web browser, viewing the PHP page through the server. All these can run on your home machine if you are just experimenting with PHP programming. See the installation instructions section for more information.
Command line scripting. You can make a PHP script to run it without any server or browser. You only need the PHP parser to use it this way. This type of usage is ideal for scripts regularly executed using cron (on *nix or Linux) or Task Scheduler (on Windows). These scripts can also be used for simple text processing tasks. See the section about Command line usage of PHP for more information.
Writing desktop applications. PHP is probably not the very best language to create a desktop application with a graphical user interface, but if you know PHP very well, and would like to use some advanced PHP features in your client-side applications you can also use PHP-GTK to write such programs. You also have the ability to write cross-platform applications this way. PHP-GTK is an extension to PHP, not available in the main distribution. If you are interested in PHP-GTK, visit its own website.
PHP can be used on all major operating systems, including Linux, many Unix variants (including HP-UX, Solaris and OpenBSD), Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, RISC OS, and probably others. PHP has also support for most of the web servers today. This includes Apache, Microsoft Internet Information Server, Personal Web Server, Netscape and iPlanet servers, Oreilly Website Pro server, Caudium, Xitami, OmniHTTPd, and many others. For the majority of the servers PHP has a module, for the others supporting the CGI standard, PHP can work as a CGI processor.
So with PHP, you have the freedom of choosing an operating system and a web server. Furthermore, you also have the choice of using procedural programming or object oriented programming, or a mixture of them. Although not every standard OOP feature is implemented in PHP 4, many code libraries and large applications (including the PEAR library) are written only using OOP code. PHP 5 fixes the OOP related weaknesses of PHP 4, and introduces a complete object model.
With PHP you are not limited to output HTML. PHP's abilities includes outputting images, PDF files and even Flash movies (using libswf and Ming) generated on the fly. You can also output easily any text, such as XHTML and any other XML file. PHP can autogenerate these files, and save them in the file system, instead of printing it out, forming a server-side cache for your dynamic content.
One of the strongest and most significant features in PHP is its support for a wide range of databases. Writing a database-enabled web page is incredibly simple. The following databases are currently supported:
We also have a DBX database abstraction extension allowing you to transparently use any database supported by that extension. Additionally PHP supports ODBC, the Open Database Connection standard, so you can connect to any other database supporting this world standard.
Adabas D InterBase PostgreSQL dBase FrontBase SQLite Empress mSQL Solid FilePro (read-only) Direct MS-SQL Sybase Hyperwave MySQL Velocis IBM DB2 ODBC Unix dbm Informix Oracle (OCI7 and OCI8) Ingres Ovrimos
PHP also has support for talking to other services using protocols such as LDAP, IMAP, SNMP, NNTP, POP3, HTTP, COM (on Windows) and countless others. You can also open raw network sockets and interact using any other protocol. PHP has support for the WDDX complex data exchange between virtually all Web programming languages. Talking about interconnection, PHP has support for instantiation of Java objects and using them transparently as PHP objects. You can also use our CORBA extension to access remote objects.
PHP has extremely useful text processing features, from the POSIX Extended or Perl regular expressions to parsing XML documents. For parsing and accessing XML documents, PHP 4 supports the SAX and DOM standards, and you can also use the XSLT extension to transform XML documents. PHP 5 standardizes all the XML extensions on the solid base of libxml2 and extends the feature set adding SimpleXML and XMLReader support.
While using PHP in the e-commerce field, you'll find the Cybercash payment, CyberMUT, VeriSign Payflow Pro and MCVE functions useful for your online payment programs.
At last but not least, we have many other interesting extensions, the mnoGoSearch search engine functions, the IRC Gateway functions, many compression utilities (gzip, bz2), calendar conversion, translation...
As you can see this page is not enough to list all the features and benefits PHP can offer. Read on in the sections about installing PHP, and see the function reference part for explanation of the extensions mentioned here.
Here we would like to show the very basics of PHP in a short, simple tutorial. This text only deals with dynamic webpage creation with PHP, though PHP is not only capable of creating webpages. See the section titled What can PHP do for more information.
PHP-enabled web pages are treated just like regular HTML pages and you can create and edit them the same way you normally create regular HTML pages.
In this tutorial we assume that your server has activated support for PHP and that all files ending in .php are handled by PHP. On most servers, this is the default extension for PHP files, but ask your server administrator to be sure. If your server supports PHP, then you do not need to do anything. Just create your .php files, put them in your web directory and the server will automatically parse them for you. There is no need to compile anything nor do you need to install any extra tools. Think of these PHP-enabled files as simple HTML files with a whole new family of magical tags that let you do all sorts of things. Most web hosts offer PHP support, but if your host does not, consider reading the PHP Links section for resources on finding PHP enabled web hosts.
Let us say you want to save precious bandwidth and develop locally. In this case, you will want to install a web server, such as Apache, and of course PHP. You will most likely want to install a database as well, such as MySQL.
You can either install these individually or choose a simpler way. Our manual has installation instructions for PHP (assuming you already have some webserver set up). In case you have problems with installing PHP yourself, we would suggest you ask your questions on our installation mailing list. If you choose to go on the simpler route, then locate a pre-configured package for your operating system, which automatically installs all of these with just a few mouse clicks. It is easy to setup a web server with PHP support on any operating system, including MacOSX, Linux and Windows. On Linux, you may find rpmfind and PBone helpful for locating RPMs. You may also want to visit apt-get to find packages for Debian.
Create a file named hello.php and put it in your web server's root directory (DOCUMENT_ROOT) with the following content:
This program is extremely simple and you really did not need to use PHP to create a page like this. All it does is display: Hello World using the PHP echo() statement. Note that the file does not need to be executable or special in any way. The server finds out that this file needs to be interpreted by PHP because you used the ".php" extension, which the server is configured to pass on to PHP. Think of this as a normal HTML file which happens to have a set of special tags available to you that do a lot of interesting things.
If you tried this example and it did not output anything, it prompted for download, or you see the whole file as text, chances are that the server you are on does not have PHP enabled, or is not configured properly. Ask your administrator to enable it for you using the Installation chapter of the manual. If you are developing locally, also read the installation chapter to make sure everything is configured properly. Make sure that you access the file via http with the server providing you the output. If you just call up the file from your file system, then it will not be parsed by PHP. If the problems persist anyway, do not hesitate to use one of the many PHP support options.
The point of the example is to show the special PHP tag format. In this example we used <?php to indicate the start of a PHP tag. Then we put the PHP statement and left PHP mode by adding the closing tag, ?>. You may jump in and out of PHP mode in an HTML file like this anywhere you want. For more details, read the manual section on the basic PHP syntax.
A Note on Line Feeds: Line feeds have little meaning in HTML, however it is still a good idea to make your HTML look nice and clean by putting line feeds in. A linefeed that follows immediately after a closing ?> will be removed by PHP. This can be extremely useful when you are putting in many blocks of PHP or include files containing PHP that aren't supposed to output anything. At the same time it can be a bit confusing. You can put a space after the closing ?> to force a space and a line feed to be output, or you can put an explicit line feed in the last echo/print from within your PHP block.
A Note on Text Editors: There are many text editors and Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) that you can use to create, edit and manage PHP files. A partial list of these tools is maintained at PHP Editors List. If you wish to recommend an editor, please visit the above page and ask the page maintainer to add the editor to the list. Having an editor with syntax highlighting can be helpful.
A Note on Word Processors: Word processors such as StarOffice Writer, Microsoft Word and Abiword are not optimal for editing PHP files. If you wish to use one for this test script, you must ensure that you save the file as plain text or PHP will not be able to read and execute the script.
A Note on Windows Notepad: If you are writing your PHP scripts using Windows Notepad, you will need to ensure that your files are saved with the .php extension. (Notepad adds a .txt extension to files automatically unless you take one of the following steps to prevent it.) When you save the file and are prompted to provide a name for the file, place the filename in quotes (i.e. "hello.php"). Alternatively, you can click on the 'Text Documents' drop-down menu in the 'Save' dialog box and change the setting to "All Files". You can then enter your filename without quotes.
Now that you have successfully created a working PHP script, it is time to create the most famous PHP script! Make a call to the phpinfo() function and you will see a lot of useful information about your system and setup such as available predefined variables, loaded PHP modules, and configuration settings. Take some time and review this important information.
Let us do something more useful now. We are going to check what sort of browser the visitor is using. For that, we check the user agent string the browser sends as part of the HTTP request. This information is stored in a variable. Variables always start with a dollar-sign in PHP. The variable we are interested in right now is $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'].
Note: $_SERVER is a special reserved PHP variable that contains all web server information. It is known as an autoglobal (or superglobal). See the related manual page on superglobals for more information. These special variables were introduced in PHP 4.1.0. Before this time, we used the older $HTTP_*_VARS arrays instead, such as $HTTP_SERVER_VARS. Although deprecated, these older variables still exist. (See also the note on old code.)
To display this variable, you can simply do:
There are many types of variables available in PHP. In the above example we printed an Array element. Arrays can be very useful.
$_SERVER is just one variable that PHP automatically makes available to you. A list can be seen in the Reserved Variables section of the manual or you can get a complete list of them by looking at the output of the phpinfo() function used in the example in the previous section.
You can put multiple PHP statements inside a PHP tag and create little blocks of code that do more than just a single echo. For example, if you want to check for Internet Explorer you can do this:
Example 2-4. Example using control structures and functions
A sample output of this script may be:
|
Here we introduce a couple of new concepts. We have an if statement. If you are familiar with the basic syntax used by the C language, this should look logical to you. Otherwise, you should probably pick up an introductory PHP book and read the first couple of chapters, or read the Language Reference part of the manual. You can find a list of PHP books at http://www.php.net/books.php.
The second concept we introduced was the strpos() function call. strpos() is a function built into PHP which searches a string for another string. In this case we are looking for 'MSIE' (so-called needle) inside $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] (so-called haystack). If the needle is found inside the haystack, the function returns the position of the needle relative to the start of the haystack. Otherwise, it returns FALSE. If it does not return FALSE, the if expression evaluates to TRUE and the code within its {braces} is executed. Otherwise, the code is not run. Feel free to create similar examples, with if, else, and other functions such as strtoupper() and strlen(). Each related manual page contains examples too. If you are unsure how to use functions, you will want to read both the manual page on how to read a function definition and the section about PHP functions.
We can take this a step further and show how you can jump in and out of PHP mode even in the middle of a PHP block:
Example 2-5. Mixing both HTML and PHP modes
A sample output of this script may be:
|
Instead of using a PHP echo statement to output something, we jumped out of PHP mode and just sent straight HTML. The important and powerful point to note here is that the logical flow of the script remains intact. Only one of the HTML blocks will end up getting sent to the viewer depending on the result of strpos(). In other words, it depends on whether the string MSIE was found or not.
One of the most powerful features of PHP is the way it handles HTML forms. The basic concept that is important to understand is that any form element will automatically be available to your PHP scripts. Please read the manual section on Variables from outside of PHP for more information and examples on using forms with PHP. Here is an example HTML form:
There is nothing special about this form. It is a straight HTML form with no special tags of any kind. When the user fills in this form and hits the submit button, the action.php page is called. In this file you would write something like this:
It should be obvious what this does. There is nothing more to it. The $_POST['name'] and $_POST['age'] variables are automatically set for you by PHP. Earlier we used the $_SERVER autoglobal; above we just introduced the $_POST autoglobal which contains all POST data. Notice how the method of our form is POST. If we used the method GET then our form information would live in the $_GET autoglobal instead. You may also use the $_REQUEST autoglobal, if you do not care about the source of your request data. It contains the merged information of GET, POST and COOKIE data. Also see the import_request_variables() function.
You can also deal with XForms input in PHP, although you will find yourself comfortable with the well supported HTML forms for quite some time. While working with XForms is not for beginners, you might be interested in them. We also have a short introduction to handling data received from XForms in our features section.
Now that PHP has grown to be a popular scripting language, there are a lot of public repositories and libraries containing code you can reuse. The PHP developers have largely tried to preserve backwards compatibility, so a script written for an older version will run (ideally) without changes in a newer version of PHP. In practice, some changes will usually be needed.
Two of the most important recent changes that affect old code are:
The deprecation of the old $HTTP_*_VARS arrays (which need to be indicated as global when used inside a function or method). The following autoglobal arrays were introduced in PHP 4.1.0. They are: $_GET, $_POST, $_COOKIE, $_SERVER, $_FILES, $_ENV, $_REQUEST, and $_SESSION. The older $HTTP_*_VARS arrays, such as $HTTP_POST_VARS, still exist as they have since PHP 3. As of PHP 5.0.0, the long PHP predefined variable arrays may be disabled with the register_long_arrays directive.
External variables are no longer registered in the global scope by default. In other words, as of PHP 4.2.0 the PHP directive register_globals is off by default in php.ini. The preferred method of accessing these values is via the autoglobal arrays mentioned above. Older scripts, books, and tutorials may rely on this directive being on. If it were on, for example, one could use $id from the URL http://www.example.com/foo.php?id=42. Whether on or off, $_GET['id'] is available.
With your new knowledge you should be able to understand most of the manual and also the various example scripts available in the example archives. You can also find other examples on the php.net websites in the links section: http://www.php.net/links.php.
To view various slide presentations that show more of what PHP can do, see the PHP Conference Material Sites: http://conf.php.net/ and http://talks.php.net/
Before starting the installation, first you need to know what do you want to use PHP for. There are three main fields you can use PHP, as described in the What can PHP do? section:
Websites and web applications (server-side scripting)
Command line scripting
Desktop (GUI) applications
For the first and most common form, you need three things: PHP itself, a web server and a web browser. You probably already have a web browser, and depending on your operating system setup, you may also have a web server (e.g. Apache on Linux and MacOS X; IIS on Windows). You may also rent webspace at a company. This way, you don't need to set up anything on your own, only write your PHP scripts, upload it to the server you rent, and see the results in your browser.
In case of setting up the server and PHP on your own, you have two choices for the method of connecting PHP to the server. For many servers PHP has a direct module interface (also called SAPI). These servers include Apache, Microsoft Internet Information Server, Netscape and iPlanet servers. Many other servers have support for ISAPI, the Microsoft module interface (OmniHTTPd for example). If PHP has no module support for your web server, you can always use it as a CGI or FastCGI processor. This means you set up your server to use the CGI executable of PHP to process all PHP file requests on the server.
If you are also interested to use PHP for command line scripting (e.g. write scripts autogenerating some images for you offline, or processing text files depending on some arguments you pass to them), you always need the command line executable. For more information, read the section about writing command line PHP applications. In this case, you need no server and no browser.
With PHP you can also write desktop GUI applications using the PHP-GTK extension. This is a completely different approach than writing web pages, as you do not output any HTML, but manage windows and objects within them. For more information about PHP-GTK, please visit the site dedicated to this extension. PHP-GTK is not included in the official PHP distribution.
From now on, this section deals with setting up PHP for web servers on Unix and Windows with server module interfaces and CGI executables. You will also find information on the command line executable in the following sections.
PHP source code and binary distributions for Windows can be found at http://www.php.net/downloads.php. We recommend you to choose a mirror nearest to you for downloading the distributions.
This section will guide you through the general configuration and installation of PHP on Unix systems. Be sure to investigate any sections specific to your platform or web server before you begin the process.
As our manual outlines in the General Installation Considerations section, we are mainly dealing with web centric setups of PHP in this section, although we will cover setting up PHP for command line usage as well.
There are several ways to install PHP for the Unix platform, either with a compile and configure process, or through various pre-packaged methods. This documentation is mainly focused around the process of compiling and configuring PHP. Many Unix like systems have some sort of package installation system. This can assist in setting up a standard configuration, but if you need to have a different set of features (such as a secure server, or a different database driver), you may need to build PHP and/or your webserver. If you are unfamiliar with building and compiling your own software, it is worth checking to see whether somebody has already built a packaged version of PHP with the features you need.
Prerequisite knowledge and software for compiling:
Basic Unix skills (being able to operate "make" and a C compiler)
An ANSI C compiler
flex: Version 2.5.4
bison: Version 1.28 (preferred), 1.35, or 1.75
A web server
Any module specific components (such as gd, pdf libs, etc.)
The initial PHP setup and configuration process is controlled by the use of the commandline options of the configure script. You could get a list of all available options along with short explanations running ./configure --help. Our manual documents the different options separately. You will find the core options in the appendix, while the different extension specific options are descibed on the reference pages.
When PHP is configured, you are ready to build the module and/or executables. The command make should take care of this. If it fails and you can't figure out why, see the Problems section.
This section contains notes and hints specific to Apache installs of PHP on Unix platforms. We also have instructions and notes for Apache 2 on a separate page.
You can select arguments to add to the configure on line 10 below from the list of core configure options and from extension specific options described at the respective places in the manual. The version numbers have been omitted here, to ensure the instructions are not incorrect. You will need to replace the 'xxx' here with the correct values from your files.
Example 4-1. Installation Instructions (Apache Shared Module Version) for PHP
|
Alternatively, to install PHP as a static object:
Example 4-2. Installation Instructions (Static Module Installation for Apache) for PHP
|
Note: Replace php-5 by php-4 and php5 by php4 in PHP 4.
Depending on your Apache install and Unix variant, there are many possible ways to stop and restart the server. Below are some typical lines used in restarting the server, for different apache/unix installations. You should replace /path/to/ with the path to these applications on your systems.
Example 4-3. Example commands for restarting Apache
|
The locations of the apachectl and http(s)dctl binaries often vary. If your system has locate or whereis or which commands, these can assist you in finding your server control programs.
Different examples of compiling PHP for apache are as follows:
This will create a libphp5.so (or libphp4.so in PHP 4) shared library that is loaded into Apache using a LoadModule line in Apache's httpd.conf file. The PostgreSQL support is embedded into this library.
This will create a libphp4.so shared library for Apache, but it will also create a pgsql.so shared library that is loaded into PHP either by using the extension directive in php.ini file or by loading it explicitly in a script using the dl() function.
This will create a libmodphp5.a library, a mod_php5.c and some accompanying files and copy this into the src/modules/php5 directory in the Apache source tree. Then you compile Apache using --activate-module=src/modules/php5/libphp5.a and the Apache build system will create libphp5.a and link it statically into the httpd binary (replace php5 by php4 in PHP 4). The PostgreSQL support is included directly into this httpd binary, so the final result here is a single httpd binary that includes all of Apache and all of PHP.
Same as before, except instead of including PostgreSQL support directly into the final httpd you will get a pgsql.so shared library that you can load into PHP from either the php.ini file or directly using dl().
When choosing to build PHP in different ways, you should consider the advantages and drawbacks of each method. Building as a shared object will mean that you can compile apache separately, and don't have to recompile everything as you add to, or change, PHP. Building PHP into apache (static method) means that PHP will load and run faster. For more information, see the Apache webpage on DSO support.
Note: Apache's default httpd.conf currently ships with a section that looks like this:
Unless you change that to "Group nogroup" or something like that ("Group daemon" is also very common) PHP will not be able to open files.
Note: Make sure you specify the installed version of apxs when using --with-apxs=/path/to/apxs. You must NOT use the apxs version that is in the apache sources but the one that is actually installed on your system.
This section contains notes and hints specific to Apache 2.0 installs of PHP on Unix systems.
| Warning |
We do not recommend using a threaded MPM in production with Apache2. Use the prefork MPM instead, or use Apache1. For information on why, read the related FAQ entry on using Apache2 with a threaded MPM |
You are highly encouraged to take a look at the Apache Documentation to get a basic understanding of the Apache 2.0 Server.
PHP and Apache 2.0.x compatibility notes: The following versions of PHP are known to work with the most recent version of Apache 2.0.x:
These versions of PHP are compatible to Apache 2.0.40 and later.
- PHP 4.3.0 or later available at http://www.php.net/downloads.php.
- the latest stable development version. Get the source code http://snaps.php.net/php5-latest.tar.gz or download binaries for Windows http://snaps.php.net/win32/php5-win32-latest.zip.
- a prerelease version downloadable from http://qa.php.net/.
- you have always the option to obtain PHP through anonymous CVS.
Apache 2.0 SAPI-support started with PHP 4.2.0. PHP 4.2.3 works with Apache 2.0.39, don't use any other version of Apache with PHP 4.2.3. However, the recommended setup is to use PHP 4.3.0 or later with the most recent version of Apache2.
All mentioned versions of PHP will work still with Apache 1.3.x.
Download the most recent version of Apache 2.0 and a fitting PHP version from the above mentioned places. This quick guide covers only the basics to get started with Apache 2.0 and PHP. For more information read the Apache Documentation. The version numbers have been omitted here, to ensure the instructions are not incorrect. You will need to replace the 'NN' here with the correct values from your files.
Example 4-4. Installation Instructions (Apache 2 Shared Module Version)
|
Following the steps above you will have a running Apache 2.0 with support for PHP as SAPI module. Of course there are many more configuration options available for both, Apache and PHP. For more information use ./configure --help in the corresponding source tree. In case you wish to build a multithreaded version of Apache 2.0 you must overwrite the standard MPM-Module prefork either with worker or perchild. To do so append to your configure line in step 6 above either the option --with-mpm=worker or --with-mpm=perchild. Take care about the consequences and understand what you are doing. For more information read the Apache documentation about the MPM-Modules.
Note: If you want to use content negotiation, read the Apache MultiViews FAQ.
Note: To build a multithreaded version of Apache your system must support threads. This also implies to build PHP with experimental Zend Thread Safety (ZTS). Therefore not all extensions might be available. The recommended setup is to build Apache with the standard prefork MPM-Module.
PHP 4 can be built as a Pike module for the Caudium webserver. Note that this is not supported with PHP 3. Follow the simple instructions below to install PHP 4 for Caudium.
Example 4-5. Caudium Installation Instructions
|
You can of course compile your Caudium module with support for the various extensions available in PHP 4. See the reference pages for extension specific configure options.
Note: When compiling PHP 4 with MySQL support you must make sure that the normal MySQL client code is used. Otherwise there might be conflicts if your Pike already has MySQL support. You do this by specifying a MySQL install directory the --with-mysql option.
To build PHP as an fhttpd module, answer "yes" to "Build as an fhttpd module?" (the --with-fhttpd=DIR option to configure) and specify the fhttpd source base directory. The default directory is /usr/local/src/fhttpd. If you are running fhttpd, building PHP as a module will give better performance, more control and remote execution capability.
Note: Support for fhttpd is no longer available as of PHP 4.3.0.
This section contains notes and hints specific to Sun Java System Web Server, Sun ONE Web Server, iPlanet and Netscape server installs of PHP on Sun Solaris.
From PHP 4.3.3 on you can use PHP scripts with the NSAPI module to generate custom directory listings and error pages. Additional functions for Apache compatibility are also available. For support in current webservers read the note about subrequests.
You can find more information about setting up PHP for the Netscape Enterprise Server (NES) here: http://benoit.noss.free.fr/php/install-php4.html
To build PHP with Sun JSWS/Sun ONE WS/iPlanet/Netscape webservers, enter the proper install directory for the --with-nsapi=[DIR] option. The default directory is usually /opt/netscape/suitespot/. Please also read /php-xxx-version/sapi/nsapi/nsapi-readme.txt.
Install the following packages from http://www.sunfreeware.com/ or another download site:
| autoconf-2.13 |
| automake-1.4 |
| bison-1_25-sol26-sparc-local |
| flex-2_5_4a-sol26-sparc-local |
| gcc-2_95_2-sol26-sparc-local |
| gzip-1.2.4-sol26-sparc-local |
| m4-1_4-sol26-sparc-local |
| make-3_76_1-sol26-sparc-local |
| mysql-3.23.24-beta (if you want mysql support) |
| perl-5_005_03-sol26-sparc-local |
| tar-1.13 (GNU tar) |
Make sure your path includes the proper directories PATH=.:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/ccs/bin and make it available to your system export PATH.
gunzip php-x.x.x.tar.gz (if you have a .gz dist, otherwise go to 4).
tar xvf php-x.x.x.tar
Change to your extracted PHP directory: cd ../php-x.x.x
For the following step, make sure /opt/netscape/suitespot/ is where your netscape server is installed. Otherwise, change to the correct path and run:
./configure --with-mysql=/usr/local/mysql \ --with-nsapi=/opt/netscape/suitespot/ \ --enable-libgcc |
Run make followed by make install.
After performing the base install and reading the appropriate readme file, you may need to perform some additional configuration steps.
Configuration Instructions for Sun/iPlanet/Netscape. Firstly you may need to add some paths to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment for the server to find all the shared libs. This can best done in the start script for your webserver. The start script is often located in: /path/to/server/https-servername/start. You may also need to edit the configuration files that are located in: /path/to/server/https-servername/config/.
Add the following line to mime.types (you can do that by the administration server):
type=magnus-internal/x-httpd-php exts=php |
Edit magnus.conf (for servers >= 6) or obj.conf (for servers < 6) and add the following, shlib will vary depending on your system, it will be something like /opt/netscape/suitespot/bin/libphp4.so. You should place the following lines after mime types init.
Init fn="load-modules" funcs="php4_init,php4_execute,php4_auth_trans" shlib="/opt/netscape/suitespot/bin/libphp4.so" Init fn="php4_init" LateInit="yes" errorString="Failed to initialize PHP!" [php_ini="/path/to/php.ini"] |
Configure the default object in obj.conf (for virtual server classes [version 6.0+] in their vserver.obj.conf):
<Object name="default"> . . . .#NOTE this next line should happen after all 'ObjectType' and before all 'AddLog' lines Service fn="php4_execute" type="magnus-internal/x-httpd-php" [inikey=value inikey=value ...] . . </Object> |
This is only needed if you want to configure a directory that only consists of PHP scripts (same like a cgi-bin directory):
<Object name="x-httpd-php"> ObjectType fn="force-type" type="magnus-internal/x-httpd-php" Service fn=php4_execute [inikey=value inikey=value ...] </Object> |
Setup of authentication: PHP authentication cannot be used with any other authentication. ALL AUTHENTICATION IS PASSED TO YOUR PHP SCRIPT. To configure PHP Authentication for the entire server, add the following line to your default object:
<Object name="default"> AuthTrans fn=php4_auth_trans . . . </Object> |
To use PHP Authentication on a single directory, add the following:
<Object ppath="d:\path\to\authenticated\dir\*"> AuthTrans fn=php4_auth_trans </Object> |
Note: The stacksize that PHP uses depends on the configuration of the webserver. If you get crashes with very large PHP scripts, it is recommended to raise it with the Admin Server (in the section "MAGNUS EDITOR").
Important when writing PHP scripts is the fact that Sun JSWS/Sun ONE WS/iPlanet/Netscape is a multithreaded web server. Because of that all requests are running in the same process space (the space of the webserver itself) and this space has only one environment. If you want to get CGI variables like PATH_INFO, HTTP_HOST etc. it is not the correct way to try this in the old PHP 3.x way with getenv() or a similar way (register globals to environment, $_ENV). You would only get the environment of the running webserver without any valid CGI variables!
Note: Why are there (invalid) CGI variables in the environment?
Answer: This is because you started the webserver process from the admin server which runs the startup script of the webserver, you wanted to start, as a CGI script (a CGI script inside of the admin server!). This is why the environment of the started webserver has some CGI environment variables in it. You can test this by starting the webserver not from the administration server. Use the command line as root user and start it manually - you will see there are no CGI-like environment variables.
Simply change your scripts to get CGI variables in the correct way for PHP 4.x by using the superglobal $_SERVER. If you have older scripts which use $HTTP_HOST, etc., you should turn on register_globals in php.ini and change the variable order too (important: remove "E" from it, because you do not need the environment here):
variables_order = "GPCS" register_globals = On |
You can use PHP to generate the error pages for "404 Not Found" or similar. Add the following line to the object in obj.conf for every error page you want to overwrite:
Error fn="php4_execute" code=XXX script="/path/to/script.php" [inikey=value inikey=value...] |
Another possibility is to generate self-made directory listings. Just create a PHP script which displays a directory listing and replace the corresponding default Service line for type="magnus-internal/directory" in obj.conf with the following:
Service fn="php4_execute" type="magnus-internal/directory" script="/path/to/script.php" [inikey=value inikey=value...] |
The NSAPI module now supports the nsapi_virtual() function (alias: virtual()) to make subrequests on the webserver and insert the result in the webpage. This function uses some undocumented features from the NSAPI library. On Unix the module automatically looks for the needed functions and uses them if available. If not, nsapi_virtual() is disabled.
Note: But be warned: Support for nsapi_virtual() is EXPERIMENTAL!!!
The default is to build PHP as a CGI program. This creates a commandline interpreter, which can be used for CGI processing, or for non-web-related PHP scripting. If you are running a web server PHP has module support for, you should generally go for that solution for performance reasons. However, the CGI version enables users to run different PHP-enabled pages under different user-ids.
| Warning |
By using the CGI setup, your server is open to several possible attacks. Please read our CGI security section to learn how to defend yourself from those attacks. |
As of PHP 4.3.0, some important additions have happened to PHP. A new SAPI named CLI also exists and it has the same name as the CGI binary. What is installed at {PREFIX}/bin/php depends on your configure line and this is described in detail in the manual section named Using PHP from the command line. For further details please read that section of the manual.
If you have built PHP as a CGI program, you may test your build by typing make test. It is always a good idea to test your build. This way you may catch a problem with PHP on your platform early instead of having to struggle with it later.
If you have built PHP 3 as a CGI program, you may benchmark your build by typing make bench. Note that if safe mode is on by default, the benchmark may not be able to finish if it takes longer then the 30 seconds allowed. This is because the set_time_limit() can not be used in safe mode. Use the max_execution_time configuration setting to control this time for your own scripts. make bench ignores the configuration file.
Note: make bench is only available for PHP 3.
Some server supplied environment variables are not defined in the current CGI/1.1 specification. Only the following variables are defined there: AUTH_TYPE, CONTENT_LENGTH, CONTENT_TYPE, GATEWAY_INTERFACE, PATH_INFO, PATH_TRANSLATED, QUERY_STRING, REMOTE_ADDR, REMOTE_HOST, REMOTE_IDENT, REMOTE_USER, REQUEST_METHOD, SCRIPT_NAME, SERVER_NAME, SERVER_PORT, SERVER_PROTOCOL, and SERVER_SOFTWARE. Everything else should be treated as 'vendor extensions'.
This section contains notes and hints specific to installing PHP on HP-UX systems. (Contributed by paul_mckay at clearwater-it dot co dot uk).
Note: These tips were written for PHP 4.0.4 and Apache 1.3.9.
You need gzip, download a binary distribution from http://hpux.connect.org.uk/ftp/hpux/Gnu/gzip-1.2.4a/gzip-1.2.4a-sd-10.20.depot.Z uncompress the file and install using swinstall.
You need gcc, download a binary distribution from http://gatekeep.cs.utah.edu/ftp/hpux/Gnu/gcc-2.95.2/gcc-2.95.2-sd-10.20.depot.gz. uncompress this file and install gcc using swinstall.
You need the GNU binutils, you can download a binary distribution from http://hpux.connect.org.uk/ftp/hpux/Gnu/binutils-2.9.1/binutils-2.9.1-sd-10.20.depot.gz. uncompress this file and install binutils using swinstall.
You now need bison, you can download a binary distribution from http://hpux.connect.org.uk/ftp/hpux/Gnu/bison-1.28/bison-1.28-sd-10.20.depot.gz, install as above.
You now need flex, you need to download the source from one of the http://www.gnu.org mirrors. It is in the non-gnu directory of the ftp site. Download the file, gunzip, then tar -xvf it. Go into the newly created flex directory and run ./configure, followed by make, and then make install.
If you have errors here, it's probably because gcc etc. are not in your PATH so add them to your PATH.
Download the PHP and apache sources.
gunzip and tar -xvf them. We need to hack a couple of files so that they can compile OK.
Firstly the configure file needs to be hacked because it seems to lose track of the fact that you are a hpux machine, there will be a better way of doing this but a cheap and cheerful hack is to put lt_target=hpux10.20 on line 47286 of the configure script.
Next, the Apache GuessOS file needs to be hacked. Under apache_1.3.9/src/helpers change line 89 from echo "hp${HPUXMACH}-hpux${HPUXVER}"; exit 0 to: echo "hp${HPUXMACH}-hp-hpux${HPUXVER}"; exit 0
You cannot install PHP as a shared object under HP-UX so you must compile it as a static, just follow the instructions at the Apache page.
PHP and Apache should have compiled OK, but Apache won't start. you need to create a new user for Apache, e.g. www, or apache. You then change lines 252 and 253 of the conf/httpd.conf in Apache so that instead of
User nobody Group nogroup |
you have something like
User www Group sys |
This is because you can't run Apache as nobody under hp-ux. Apache and PHP should then work.
This section contains notes and hints specific to installing PHP on OpenBSD 3.6.
Using binary packages to install PHP on OpenBSD is the recommended and simplest method. The core package has been separated from the various modules, and each can be installed and removed independently from the others. The files you need can be found on your OpenBSD CD or on the FTP site.
The main package you need to install is php4-core-4.3.8.tgz, which contains the basic engine (plus gettext and iconv). Next, take a look at the module packages, such as php4-mysql-4.3.8.tgz or php4-imap-4.3.8.tgz. You need to use the phpxs command to activate and deactivate these modules in your php.ini.
Example 4-6. OpenBSD Package Install Example
|
Read the packages(7) manual page for more information about binary packages on OpenBSD.
You can also compile up PHP from source using the ports tree. However, this is only recommended for users familiar with OpenBSD. The PHP 4 port is split into two sub-directories: core and extensions. The extensions directory generates sub-packages for all of the supported PHP modules. If you find you do not want to create some of these modules, use the no_* FLAVOR. For example, to skip building the imap module, set the FLAVOR to no_imap.
The default install of Apache runs inside a chroot(2) jail, which will restrict PHP scripts to accessing files under /var/www. You will therefore need to create a /var/www/tmp directory for PHP session files to be stored, or use an alternative session backend. In addition, database sockets need to be placed inside the jail or listen on the localhost interface. If you use network functions, some files from /etc such as /etc/resolv.conf and /etc/services will need to be moved into /var/www/etc. The OpenBSD PEAR package automatically installs into the correct chroot directories, so no special modification is needed there. More information on the OpenBSD Apache is available in the OpenBSD FAQ.
The OpenBSD 3.6 package for the gd extension requires XFree86 to be installed. If you do not wish to use some of the font features that require X11, install the php4-gd-4.3.8-no_x11.tgz package instead.
Older releases of OpenBSD used the FLAVORS system to compile up a statically linked PHP. Since it is hard to generate binary packages using this method, it is now deprecated. You can still use the old stable ports trees if you wish, but they are unsupported by the OpenBSD team. If you have any comments about this, the current maintainer for the port is Anil Madhavapeddy (avsm at openbsd dot org).
This section contains notes and hints specific to installing PHP on Solaris systems.
Solaris installs often lack C compilers and their related tools. Read this FAQ for information on why using GNU versions for some of these tools is necessary. The required software is as follows:
gcc (recommended, other C compilers may work)
make
flex
bison
m4
autoconf
automake
perl
gzip
tar
GNU sed
You can simplify the Solaris install process by using pkgadd to install most of your needed components.
This section contains notes and hints specific to installing PHP on Debian GNU/Linux.
While you can just download the PHP source and compile it yourself, using Debian's packaging system is the simplest and cleanest method of installing PHP. If you are not familiar with building software on Linux, this is the way to go.
The first decision you need to make is whether you want to install Apache 1.3.x or Apache 2.x. The corresponding PHP packages are respectively named libapache-mod-php* and libapache2-mod-php*. The steps given below will use Apache 1.3.x. Please note that, as of this writing, there is no official Debian packages of PHP 5. Then the steps given below will install PHP 4.
PHP is available in Debian as CGI or CLI flavour too, named respectively php4-cgi and php4-cli. If you need them, you'll just have to reproduce the following steps with the good package names. Another special package you'd want to install is php4-pear. It contains a minimal PEAR installation and the pear commandline utility.
If you need more recent packages of PHP than the Debian's stable ones or if some PHP modules lacks the Debian official repository, perhaps you should take a look at http://www.apt-get.org/. One of the results found should be Dotdeb. This unofficial repository is maintained by Guillaume Plessis and contains Debian packages of the most recent versions of PHP 4 and PHP 5. To use it, just add the to following two lines to your /etc/apt/sources.lists and run apt-get update :
The last thing to consider is whether your list of packages is up to date. If you have not updated it recently, you need to run apt-get update before anything else. This way, you will be using the most recent stable version of the Apache and PHP packages.
Now that everything is in place, you can use the following example to install Apache and PHP:
APT will automatically install the PHP 4 module for Apache 1.3, and all its dependencies and then activate it. If you're not asked to restart Apache during the install process, you'll have to do it manually :
In the last section, PHP was installed with only core modules. This may not be what you want and you will soon discover that you need more activated modules, like MySQL, cURL, GD, etc.
When you compile PHP from source yourself, you need to activate modules via the configure command. With APT, you just have to install additional packages. They're all named 'php4-*' (or 'php5-*' if you installed PHP 5 from a third party repository).
As you can see from the last output, there's a lot of PHP modules that you can install (excluding the php4-cgi, php4-cli or php4-pear special packages). Look at them closely and choose what you need. If you choose a module and you do not have the proper libraries, APT will automatically install all the dependencies for you.
If you choose to add the MySQL, cURL and GD support to PHP the command will look something like this:
APT will automatically add the appropriate lines to your different php.ini (/etc/php4/apache/php.ini, /etc/php4/cgi/php.ini, etc).
You'll only have to stop/start Apache as previously to activate the modules.
If you see the PHP source instead of the result the script should produce, APT has probably not included /etc/apache/conf.d/php4 in your Apache 1.3 configuration. Please ensure that the following line is present in your /etc/apache/httpd.conf file then stop/start Apache:
If you installed an additional module and if its functions are not available in your scripts, please ensure that the appropriate line is present in your php.ini, as seen before. APT may fail during the installation of the additional module, due to a confusing debconf configuration.
This section contains notes and hints specific to installing PHP on Mac OS X. There are two slightly different versions of Mac OS X, Client and Server, our manual deals with installing PHP on both systems. Note that PHP is not available for MacOS 9 and earlier versions.
There are a few pre-packaged and pre-compiled versions of PHP for Mac OS X. This can help in setting up a standard configuration, but if you need to have a different set of features (such as a secure server, or a different database driver), you may need to build PHP and/or your web server yourself. If you are unfamiliar with building and compiling your own software, it's worth checking whether somebody has already built a packaged version of PHP with the features you need.
Get the latest distributions of Apache and PHP.
Untar them, and run the configure program on Apache like so.
./configure --exec-prefix=/usr \ --localstatedir=/var \ --mandir=/usr/share/man \ --libexecdir=/System/Library/Apache/Modules \ --iconsdir=/System/Library/Apache/Icons \ --includedir=/System/Library/Frameworks/Apache.framework/Versions/1.3/Headers \ --enable-shared=max \ --enable-module=most \ --target=apache |
If you want the compiler to do some optimization, you may also want to add this line:
setenv OPTIM=-O2 |
Next, go to the PHP 4 source directory and configure it.
./configure --prefix=/usr \
--sysconfdir=/etc \
--localstatedir=/var \
--mandir=/usr/share/man \
--with-xml \
--with-apache=/src/apache_1.3.12 |
Type make and make install. This will add a directory to your Apache source directory under src/modules/php4.
Now, reconfigure Apache to build in PHP 4.
./configure --exec-prefix=/usr \ --localstatedir=/var \ --mandir=/usr/share/man \ --libexecdir=/System/Library/Apache/Modules \ --iconsdir=/System/Library/Apache/Icons \ --includedir=/System/Library/Frameworks/Apache.framework/Versions/1.3/Headers \ --enable-shared=max \ --enable-module=most \ --target=apache \ --activate-module=src/modules/php4/libphp4.a |
Copy and rename the php.ini-dist file to your bin directory from your PHP 4 source directory: cp php.ini-dist /usr/local/bin/php.ini or (if your don't have a local directory) cp php.ini-dist /usr/bin/php.ini.
The following instructions will help you install a PHP module for the Apache web server included in MacOS X. This version includes support for the MySQL and PostgreSQL databases. These instructions are graciously provided by Marc Liyanage.
| Warning |
Be careful when you do this, you could screw up your Apache web server! |
Do this to install:
Open a terminal window.
Type wget http://www.diax.ch/users/liyanage/software/macosx/libphp4.so.gz, wait for the download to finish.
Type gunzip libphp4.so.gz.
Type sudo apxs -i -a -n php4 libphp4.so
Now type sudo open -a TextEdit /etc/httpd/httpd.conf. TextEdit will open with the web server configuration file. Locate these two lines towards the end of the file: (Use the Find command)
#AddType application/x-httpd-php .php #AddType application/x-httpd-php-source .phps |
Finally, type sudo apachectl graceful to restart the web server.
PHP should now be up and running. You can test it by dropping a file into your Sites folder which is called test.php. Into that file, write this line: <?php phpinfo() ?>.
Now open up 127.0.0.1/~your_username/test.php in your web browser. You should see a status table with information about the PHP module.
This section applies to Windows 98/Me and Windows NT/2000/XP/2003. PHP will not work on 16 bit platforms such as Windows 3.1 and sometimes we refer to the supported Windows platforms as Win32. Windows 95 is no longer supported as of PHP 4.3.0.
There are two main ways to install PHP for Windows: either manually or by using the installer.
If you have Microsoft Visual Studio, you can also build PHP from the original source code.
Once you have PHP installed on your Windows system, you may also want to load various extensions for added functionality.
| Warning |
There are several all-in-one installers over the Internet, but none of those are endorsed by PHP.net, as we believe that the manual installation is the best choice to have your system secure and optimised. |
The Windows PHP installer is available from the downloads page at http://www.php.net/downloads.php. This installs the CGI version of PHP and for IIS, PWS, and Xitami, it configures the web server as well. The installer does not include any extra external PHP extensions (php_*.dll) as you'll only find those in the Windows Zip Package and PECL downloads.
Note: While the Windows installer is an easy way to make PHP work, it is restricted in many aspects as, for example, the automatic setup of extensions is not supported. Use of the installer isn't the preferred method for installing PHP.
First, install your selected HTTP (web) server on your system, and make sure that it works.
Run the executable installer and follow the instructions provided by the installation wizard. Two types of installation are supported - standard, which provides sensible defaults for all the settings it can, and advanced, which asks questions as it goes along.
The installation wizard gathers enough information to set up the php.ini file, and configure certain web servers to use PHP. One of the web servers the PHP installer does not configure for is Apache, so you'll need to configure it manually.
Once the installation has completed, the installer will inform you if you need to restart your system, restart the server, or just start using PHP.
| Warning |
Be aware, that this setup of PHP is not secure. If you would like to have a secure PHP setup, you'd better go on the manual way, and set every option carefully. This automatically working setup gives you an instantly working PHP installation, but it is not meant to be used on online servers. |
This install guide will help you manually install and configure PHP with a web server on Microsoft Windows. To get started you'll need to download the zip binary distribution from the downloads page at http://www.php.net/downloads.php.
Although there are many all-in-one installation kits, and we also distribute a PHP installer for Microsoft Windows, we recommend you take the time to setup PHP yourself as this will provide you with a better understanding of the system, and enables you to install PHP extensions easily when needed.
Upgrading from a previous PHP version: Previous editions of the manual suggest moving various ini and DLL files into your SYSTEM (i.e. C:\WINDOWS) folder and while this simplifies the installation procedure it makes upgrading difficult. We advise you remove all of these files (like php.ini and PHP related DLLs from the Windows SYSTEM folder) before moving on with a new PHP installation. Be sure to backup these files as you might break the entire system. The old php.ini might be useful in setting up the new PHP as well. And as you'll soon learn, the preferred method for installing PHP is to keep all PHP related files in one directory and have this directory available to your systems PATH.
MDAC requirements: If you use Microsoft Windows 98/NT4 download the latest version of the Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) for your platform. MDAC is available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/data/. This requirement exists because ODBC is built into the distributed Windows binaries.
The following steps should be completed on all installations before any server specific instructions are performed:
Extract the distribution file into a directory of your choice. If you are installing PHP 4, extract to C:\, as the zip file expands to a foldername like php-4.3.7-Win32. If you are installing PHP 5, extract to C:\php as the zip file doesn't expand as in PHP 4. You may choose a different location but do not have spaces in the path (like C:\Program Files\PHP) as some web servers will crash if you do.
The directory structure extracted from the zip is different for PHP versions 4 and 5 and look like as follows:
Example 6-1. PHP 4 package structure
|
Or:
Example 6-2. PHP 5 package structure
|
Notice the differences and similarities. Both PHP 4 and PHP 5 have a CGI executable, a CLI executable, and server modules, but they are located in different folders and/or have different names. While PHP 4 packages have the server modules in the sapi folder, PHP 5 distributions have no such directory and instead they're in the PHP folder root. The supporting DLLs for the PHP 5 extensions are also not in a seperate directory.
Note: In PHP 4, you should move all files located in the dll and sapi folders to the main folder (e.g. C:\php).
Here is a list of server modules shipped with PHP 4 and PHP 5:
sapi/php4activescript.dll (php5activescript.dll) - ActiveScript engine, allowing you to embed PHP in your Windows applications.
sapi/php4apache.dll (php5apache.dll) - Apache 1.3.x module.
sapi/php4apache2.dll (php5apache2.dll) - Apache 2.0.x module.
sapi/php4isapi.dll (php5isapi.dll) - ISAPI Module for ISAPI compliant web servers like IIS 4.0/PWS 4.0 or newer.
sapi/php4nsapi.dll (php5nsapi.dll) - Sun/iPlanet/Netscape server module.
sapi/php4pi3web.dll (no equivalent in PHP 5) - Pi3Web server module.
Server modules provide significantly better performance and additional functionality compared to the CGI binary. The CLI version is designed to let you use PHP for command line scripting. More information about CLI is available in the chapter about using PHP from the command line.
| Warning |
The SAPI modules have been significantly improved as of the 4.1 release, however, in older systems you may encounter server errors or other server modules failing, such as ASP. |
The CGI and CLI binaries, and the web server modules all require the php4ts.dll (php5ts.dll) file to be available to them. You have to make sure that this file can be found by your PHP installation. The search order for this DLL is as follows:
The same directory from where php.exe is called, or in case you use a SAPI module, the web server's directory (e.g. C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache2\bin).
Any directory in your Windows PATH environment variable.
To make php4ts.dll / php5ts.dll available you have three options: copy the file to the Windows system directory, copy the file to the web server's directory, or add your PHP directory, C:\php to the PATH. For better maintenance, we advise you to follow the last option, add C:\php to the PATH, because it will be simpler to upgrade PHP in the future. Read more about how to add your PHP directory to PATH in the corresponding FAQ entry (and then don't forget to restart the computer - logoff isn't enough).
The next step is to set up a valid configuration file for PHP, php.ini. There are two ini files distributed in the zip file, php.ini-dist and php.ini-recommended. We advise you to use php.ini-recommended, because we optimized the default settings in this file for performance, and security. Read this well documented file carefully because it has changes from php.ini-dist that will drastically affect your setup. Some examples are display_errors being off and magic_quotes_gpc being off. In addition to reading these, study the ini settings and set every element manually yourself. If you would like to achieve the best security, then this is the way for you, although PHP works fine with these default ini files. Copy your chosen ini-file to a directory that PHP is able to find and rename it to php.ini. PHP searches for php.ini in the locations described in the Section called The configuration file in Chapter 9 section.
If you are running Apache 2, the simpler option is to use the PHPIniDir directive (read the installation on Apache 2 page), otherwise your best option is to set the PHPRC environment variable. This process is explained in the following FAQ entry.
Note: If you're using NTFS on Windows NT, 2000, XP or 2003, make sure that the user running the web server has read permissions to your php.ini (e.g. make it readable by Everyone).
The following steps are optional:
Edit your new php.ini file. If you plan to use OmniHTTPd, do not follow the next step. Set the doc_root to point to your web servers document_root. For example:
Choose the extensions you would like to load when PHP starts. See the section about Windows extensions, about how to set up one, and what is already built in. Note that on a new installation it is advisable to first get PHP working and tested without any extensions before enabling them in php.ini.
On PWS and IIS, you can set the browscap configuration setting to point to: c:\windows\system\inetsrv\browscap.ini on Windows 9x/Me, c:\winnt\system32\inetsrv\browscap.ini on NT/2000, and c:\windows\system32\inetsrv\browscap.ini on XP. For an up-to-date browscap.ini, read the following FAQ.
PHP is now setup on your system. The next step is to choose a web server, and enable it to run PHP. Choose a webserver from the table of contents.
This section contains notes specific to the ActiveScript installation.
ActiveScript is a windows only SAPI that enables you to use PHP script in any ActiveScript compliant host, like Windows Script Host, ASP/ASP.NET, Windows Script Components or Microsoft Scriptlet control.
As of PHP 5.0.1, ActiveScript has been moved to the PECL repository. You may download this PECL extension DLL from the PHP Downloads page or at http://snaps.php.net/.
Note: You should read the manual installation steps first!
After installing PHP, you should download the ActiveScript DLL (php5activescript.dll) and place it in the main PHP folder (e.g. C:\php).
After having all the files needed, you must register the DLL on your system. To achieve this, open a Command Prompt window (located in the Start Menu). Then go to your PHP directory by typing something like cd C:\php. To register the DLL just type regsvr32 php5activescript.dll.
To test if ActiveScript is working, create a new file, named test.wsf (the extension is very important) and type:
<job id="test">
<script language="PHPScript">
$WScript->Echo("Hello World!");
</script>
</job> |
Note: In PHP 4, the engine was named 'ActivePHP', so if you are using PHP 4, you should replace 'PHPScript' with 'ActivePHP' in the above example.
Note: ActiveScript doesn't use the default php.ini file. Instead, it will look only in the same directory as the .exe that caused it to load. You should create php-activescript.ini and place it in that folder, if you wish to load extensions, etc.
This section contains notes and hints specific to IIS (Microsoft Internet Information Server).
| Warning |
By using the CGI setup, your server is open to several possible attacks. Please read our CGI security section to learn how to defend yourself from those attacks. |
First, read the Manual Installation Instructions. Do not skip this step as it provides crucial information for installing PHP on Windows.
CGI users must set the cgi.force_redirect PHP directive to 0 inside php.ini. Read the faq on cgi.force_redirect for important details. Also, CGI users may want to set the cgi.redirect_status_env directive. When using directives, be sure these directives aren't commented out inside php.ini.
The PHP 4 CGI is named php.exe while in PHP 5 it's php-cgi.exe. In PHP 5, php.exe is the CLI, and not the CGI.
Modify the Windows PATH environment variable to include the PHP directory. This way the PHP DLL files, PHP executables, and php.ini can all remain in the PHP directory without cluttering up the Windows system directory. For more details, see the FAQ on Setting the PATH.
The IIS user (usually IUSR_MACHINENAME) needs permission to read various files and directories, such as php.ini, docroot, and the session tmp directory.
Be sure the extension_dir and doc_root PHP directives are appropriately set in php.ini. These directives depend on the system that PHP is being installed on. In PHP 4, the extension_dir is extensions while with PHP 5 it's ext. So, an example PHP 5 extensions_dir value is "c:\php\ext" and an example IIS doc_root value is "c:\Inetpub\wwwroot".
PHP extension DLL files, such as php_mysql.dll and php_curl.dll, are found in the zip package of the PHP download (not the PHP installer). In PHP 5, many extensions are part of PECL and can be downloaded in the "Collection of PECL modules" package. Files such as php_zip.dll and php_ssh2.dll. Download PHP files here.
When defining the executable, the 'check that file exists' box may also be checked. For a small performance penalty, the IIS (or PWS) will check that the script file exists and sort out authentication before firing up PHP. This means that the web server will provide sensible 404 style error messages instead of CGI errors complaining that PHP did not output any data.
PHP may be installed as a CGI binary, or with the ISAPI module. In either case, you need to start the Microsoft Management Console (may appear as 'Internet Services Manager', either in your Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack branch or the Control Panel=>Administrative Tools under Windows 2000/XP). Then right click on your Web server node (this will most probably appear as 'Default Web Server'), and select 'Properties'.
If you want to use the CGI binary, do the following:
Under 'Home Directory', 'Virtual Directory', or 'Directory', do the following:
Change the Execute Permissions to 'Scripts only'
Click on the 'Configuration' button, and choose the Application Mappings tab. Click Add and set the Executable path to the appropriate CGI file. An example PHP 5 value is: C:\php\php-cgi.exe Supply .php as the extension. Leave 'Method exclusions' blank, and check the 'Script engine' checkbox. Now, click OK a few times.
Set up the appropriate security. (This is done in Internet Service Manager), and if your NT Server uses NTFS file system, add execute rights for I_USR_ to the directory that contains php.exe / php-cgi.exe.
To use the ISAPI module, do the following:
If you don't want to perform HTTP Authentication using PHP, you can (and should) skip this step. Under ISAPI Filters, add a new ISAPI filter. Use PHP as the filter name, and supply a path to the php4isapi.dll / php5isapi.dll.
Under 'Home Directory', 'Virtual Directory', or 'Directory', do the following:
Change the Execute Permissions to 'Scripts only'
Click on the 'Configuration' button, and choose the Application Mappings tab. Click Add and set the Executable path to the appropriate ISAPI DLL. An example PHP 5 value is: C:\php\php5isapi.dll Supply .php as the extension. Leave 'Method exclusions' blank, and check the 'Script engine' checkbox. Now, click OK a few times.
Stop IIS completely (NET STOP iisadmin)
Start IIS again (NET START w3svc)
With IIS 6 (2003 Server), open up the IIS Manager, go to Web Service Extensions, choose "Add a new Web service extension", enter in a name such as PHP, choose the Add button and for the value browse to either the ISAPI file (php4isapi.dll or php5isapi.dll) or CGI (php.exe or php-cgi.exe) then check "Set extension status to Allowed" and click OK.
In order to use index.php as a default content page, do the following: From within the Documents tab, choose Add. Type in index.php and click OK. Adjust the order by choosing Move Up or Move Down. This is similar to setting DirectoryIndex with Apache.
The steps above must be repeated for each extension that is to be associated with PHP scripts. .php is the most common although .php3 may be required for legacy applications.
If you experience 100% CPU usage after some time, turn off the IIS setting Cache ISAPI Application.
PWS 4 does not support ISAPI, only PHP CGI should be used.
Edit the enclosed pws-php4cgi.reg / pws-php5cgi.reg file (look into the SAPI folder for PHP 4, or in the main folder for PHP 5) to reflect the location of your php.exe / php-cgi.exe. Backslashes should be escaped, for example: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\w3svc\parameters\Script Map] ".php"="C:\\php\\php.exe" (change to C:\\php\\php-cgi.exe if you are using PHP 5) Now merge this registery file into your system; you may do this by double-clicking it.
In the PWS Manager, right click on a given directory you want to add PHP support to, and select Properties. Check the 'Execute' checkbox, and confirm.
The recommended method for configuring these servers is to use the REG file included with the distribution (pws-php4cgi.reg in the SAPI folder for PHP 4, or pws-php5cgi.reg in the main folder for PHP 5). You may want to edit this file and make sure the extensions and PHP install directories match your configuration. Or you can follow the steps below to do it manually.
| Warning |
These steps involve working directly with the Windows registry. One error here can leave your system in an unstable state. We highly recommend that you back up your registry first. The PHP Development team will not be held responsible if you damage your registry. |
Run Regedit.
Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE /System /CurrentControlSet /Services /W3Svc /Parameters /ScriptMap.
On the edit menu select: New->String Value.
Type in the extension you wish to use for your php scripts. For example .php
Double click on the new string value and enter the path to php.exe in the value data field. ex: C:\php\php.exe "%s" %s for PHP 4, or C:\php\php-cgi.exe "%s" %s for PHP 5.
Repeat these steps for each extension you wish to associate with PHP scripts.
The following steps do not affect the web server installation and only apply if you want your PHP scripts to be executed when they are run from the command line (ex. run C:\myscripts\test.php) or by double clicking on them in a directory viewer window. You may wish to skip these steps as you might prefer the PHP files to load into a text editor when you double click on them.
Navigate to: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
On the edit menu select: New->Key.
Name the key to the extension you setup in the previous section. ex: .php
Highlight the new key and in the right side pane, double click the "default value" and enter phpfile.
Repeat the last step for each extension you set up in the previous section.
Now create another New->Key under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and name it phpfile.
Highlight the new key phpfile and in the right side pane, double click the "default value" and enter PHP Script.
Right click on the phpfile key and select New->Key, name it Shell.
Right click on the Shell key and select New->Key, name it open.
Right click on the open key and select New->Key, name it command.
Highlight the new key command and in the right side pane, double click the "default value" and enter the path to php.exe. ex: c:\php\php.exe -q %1. (don't forget the %1).
Exit Regedit.
If using PWS on Windows, reboot to reload the registry.
PWS and IIS 3 users now have a fully operational system. IIS 3 users can use a nifty tool from Steven Genusa to configure their script maps.
This section contains notes and hints specific to Apache 1.3.x installs of PHP on Microsoft Windows systems. There are also instructions and notes for Apache 2 on a separate page.
Note: Please read the manual installation steps first!
There are two ways to set up PHP to work with Apache 1.3.x on Windows. One is to use the CGI binary (php.exe for PHP 4 and php-cgi.exe for PHP 5), the other is to use the Apache Module DLL. In either case you need to edit your httpd.conf to configure Apache to work with PHP, and then restart the server.
It is worth noting here that now the SAPI module has been made more stable under Windows, we recommend it's use above the CGI binary, since it is more transparent and secure.
Although there can be a few variations of configuring PHP under Apache, these are simple enough to be used by the newcomer. Please consult the Apache Documentation for further configuration directives.
After changing the configuration file, remember to restart the server, for example, NET STOP APACHE followed by NET START APACHE, if you run Apache as a Windows Service, or use your regular shortcuts.
Note: Remember that when adding path values in the Apache configuration files on Windows, all backslashes such as c:\directory\file.ext must be converted to forward slashes, as c:/directory/file.ext. A trailing slash may also be necessary for directories.
You should add the following lines to your Apache httpd.conf file:
Example 6-3. PHP as an Apache 1.3.x module This assumes PHP is installed to c:\php. Adjust the path if this is not the case. For PHP 4:
For PHP 5:
For both:
|
If you unzipped the PHP package to C:\php\ as described in the Manual Installation Steps section, you need to insert these lines to your Apache configuration file to set up the CGI binary:
| Warning |
By using the CGI setup, your server is open to several possible attacks. Please read our CGI security section to learn how to defend yourself from those attacks. |
If you would like to present PHP source files syntax highlighted, there is no such convenient option as with the module version of PHP. If you chose to configure Apache to use PHP as a CGI binary, you will need to use the highlight_file() function. To do this simply create a PHP script file and add this code: <?php highlight_file('some_php_script.php'); ?>.
This section contains notes and hints specific to Apache 2.0.x installs of PHP on Microsoft Windows systems. We also have instructions and notes for Apache 1.3.x users on a separate page.
Note: You should read the manual installation steps first!
Note: Users of Apache 2.2.x may use the documentation below except the appropriate DLL files are instead named php4apache2_2.dll and php5apache2_2.dll. These exist in the PHP distribution as of PHP 5.2.0. See also http://snaps.php.net/
| Warning |
We do not recommend using a threaded MPM in production with Apache2. Use the prefork MPM instead, or use Apache1. For information on why, read the related FAQ entry on using Apache2 with a threaded MPM |
You are highly encouraged to take a look at the Apache Documentation to get a basic understanding of the Apache 2.0.x Server. Also consider to read the Windows specific notes for Apache 2.0.x before reading on here.
PHP and Apache 2.0.x compatibility notes: The following versions of PHP are known to work with the most recent version of Apache 2.0.x:
These versions of PHP are compatible to Apache 2.0.40 and later.
- PHP 4.3.0 or later available at http://www.php.net/downloads.php.
- the latest stable development version. Get the source code http://snaps.php.net/php5-latest.tar.gz or download binaries for Windows http://snaps.php.net/win32/php5-win32-latest.zip.
- a prerelease version downloadable from http://qa.php.net/.
- you have always the option to obtain PHP through anonymous CVS.
Apache 2.0 SAPI-support started with PHP 4.2.0. PHP 4.2.3 works with Apache 2.0.39, don't use any other version of Apache with PHP 4.2.3. However, the recommended setup is to use PHP 4.3.0 or later with the most recent version of Apache2.
All mentioned versions of PHP will work still with Apache 1.3.x.
| Warning |
Apache 2.0.x is designed to run on Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 or Windows XP. At this time, support for Windows 9x is incomplete. Apache 2.0.x is not expected to work on those platforms at this time. |
Download the most recent version of Apache 2.0.x and a fitting PHP version. Follow the Manual Installation Steps and come back to go on with the integration of PHP and Apache.
There are two ways to set up PHP to work with Apache 2.0.x on Windows. One is to use the CGI binary the other is to use the Apache module DLL. In either case you need to edit your httpd.conf to configure Apache to work with PHP and then restart the server.
Note: Remember that when adding path values in the Apache configuration files on Windows, all backslashes such as c:\directory\file.ext must be converted to forward slashes, as c:/directory/file.ext. A trailing slash may also be necessary for directories.
You need to insert these three lines to your Apache httpd.conf configuration file to set up the CGI binary:
| Warning |
By using the CGI setup, your server is open to several possible attacks. Please read our CGI security section to learn how to defend yourself from those attacks. |
You need to insert these two lines to your Apache httpd.conf configuration file to set up the PHP module for Apache 2.0:
Example 6-6. PHP and Apache 2.0 as Module
|
Note: Remember to substitute your actual path to PHP for the c:/php/ in the above examples. Take care to use either php4apache2.dll or php5apache2.dll in your LoadModule directive and not php4apache.dll or php5apache.dll as the latter ones are designed to run with Apache 1.3.x.
Note: If you want to use content negotiation, read related FAQ.
| Warning |
Don't mix up your installation with DLL files from different PHP versions. You have the only choice to use the DLL's and extensions that ship with your downloaded PHP version. |
This section contains notes and hints specific to Sun Java System Web Server, Sun ONE Web Server, iPlanet and Netscape server installs of PHP on Windows.
From PHP 4.3.3 on you can use PHP scripts with the NSAPI module to generate custom directory listings and error pages. Additional functions for Apache compatibility are also available. For support in current webservers read the note about subrequests.
To install PHP as a CGI handler, do the following:
Copy php4ts.dll to your systemroot (the directory where you installed Windows)
Make a file association from the command line. Type the following two lines:
assoc .php=PHPScript ftype PHPScript=c:\php\php.exe %1 %* |
In the Netscape Enterprise Administration Server create a dummy shellcgi directory and remove it just after (this step creates 5 important lines in obj.conf and allow the web server to handle shellcgi scripts).
In the Netscape Enterprise Administration Server create a new mime type (Category: type, Content-Type: magnus-internal/shellcgi, File Suffix:php).
Do it for each web server instance you want PHP to run
More details about setting up PHP as a CGI executable can be found here: http://benoit.noss.free.fr/php/install-php.html
To install PHP with NSAPI, do the following:
Copy php4ts.dll to your systemroot (the directory where you installed Windows)
Make a file association from the command line. Type the following two lines:
assoc .php=PHPScript ftype PHPScript=c:\php\php.exe %1 %* |
In the Netscape Enterprise Administration Server create a new mime type (Category: type, Content-Type: magnus-internal/x-httpd-php, File Suffix: php).
Edit magnus.conf (for servers >= 6) or obj.conf (for servers < 6) and add the following: You should place the lines after mime types init.
Init fn="load-modules" funcs="php4_init,php4_execute,php4_auth_trans" shlib="c:/php/sapi/php4nsapi.dll" Init fn="php4_init" LateInit="yes" errorString="Failed to initialise PHP!" [php_ini="c:/path/to/php.ini"] |
Configure the default object in obj.conf (for virtual server classes [Sun Web Server 6.0+] in their vserver.obj.conf): In the <Object name="default"> section, place this line necessarily after all 'ObjectType' and before all 'AddLog' lines:
Service fn="php4_execute" type="magnus-internal/x-httpd-php" [inikey=value inikey=value ...] |
This is only needed if you want to configure a directory that only consists of PHP scripts (same like a cgi-bin directory):
<Object name="x-httpd-php"> ObjectType fn="force-type" type="magnus-internal/x-httpd-php" Service fn=php4_execute [inikey=value inikey=value ...] </Object> |
Restart your web service and apply changes
Do it for each web server instance you want PHP to run
Note: More details about setting up PHP as an NSAPI filter can be found here: http://benoit.noss.free.fr/php/install-php4.html
Note: The stacksize that PHP uses depends on the configuration of the webserver. If you get crashes with very large PHP scripts, it is recommended to raise it with the Admin Server (in the section "MAGNUS EDITOR").
Important when writing PHP scripts is the fact that Sun JSWS/Sun ONE WS/iPlanet/Netscape is a multithreaded web server. Because of that all requests are running in the same process space (the space of the webserver itself) and this space has only one environment. If you want to get CGI variables like PATH_INFO, HTTP_HOST etc. it is not the correct way to try this in the old PHP 3.x way with getenv() or a similar way (register globals to environment, $_ENV). You would only get the environment of the running webserver without any valid CGI variables!
Note: Why are there (invalid) CGI variables in the environment?
Answer: This is because you started the webserver process from the admin server which runs the startup script of the webserver, you wanted to start, as a CGI script (a CGI script inside of the admin server!). This is why the environment of the started webserver has some CGI environment variables in it. You can test this by starting the webserver not from the administration server. Use the command line as root user and start it manually - you will see there are no CGI-like environment variables.
Simply change your scripts to get CGI variables in the correct way for PHP 4.x by using the superglobal $_SERVER. If you have older scripts which use $HTTP_HOST, etc., you should turn on register_globals in php.ini and change the variable order too (important: remove "E" from it, because you do not need the environment here):
variables_order = "GPCS" register_globals = On |
You can use PHP to generate the error pages for "404 Not Found" or similar. Add the following line to the object in obj.conf for every error page you want to overwrite:
Error fn="php4_execute" code=XXX script="/path/to/script.php" [inikey=value inikey=value...] |
Another possibility is to generate self-made directory listings. Just create a PHP script which displays a directory listing and replace the corresponding default Service line for type="magnus-internal/directory" in obj.conf with the following:
Service fn="php4_execute" type="magnus-internal/directory" script="/path/to/script.php" [inikey=value inikey=value...] |
The NSAPI module now supports the nsapi_virtual() function (alias: virtual()) to make subrequests on the webserver and insert the result in the webpage. The problem is, that this function uses some undocumented features from the NSAPI library.
Under Unix this is not a problem, because the module automatically looks for the needed functions and uses them if available. If not, nsapi_virtual() is disabled.
Under Windows limitations in the DLL handling need the use of a automatic detection of the most recent ns-httpdXX.dll file. This is tested for servers till version 6.1. If a newer version of the Sun server is used, the detection fails and nsapi_virtual() is disabled.
If this is the case, try the following: Add the following parameter to php4_init in magnus.conf/obj.conf:
Init fn=php4_init ... server_lib="ns-httpdXX.dll" |
You can check the status by using the phpinfo() function.
Note: But be warned: Support for nsapi_virtual() is EXPERIMENTAL!!!
This section contains notes and hints specific to OmniHTTPd on Windows.
Note: You should read the manual installation steps first!
| Warning |
By using the CGI setup, your server is open to several possible attacks. Please read our CGI security section to learn how to defend yourself from those attacks. |
You need to complete the following steps to make PHP work with OmniHTTPd. This is a CGI executable setup. SAPI is supported by OmniHTTPd, but some tests have shown that it is not so stable to use PHP as an ISAPI module.
Important for CGI users: Read the faq on cgi.force_redirect for important details. This directive needs to be set to 0.
Install OmniHTTPd server.
Right click on the blue OmniHTTPd icon in the system tray and select Properties
Click on Web Server Global Settings
On the 'External' tab, enter: virtual = .php | actual = c:\php\php.exe (use php-cgi.exe if installing PHP 5), and use the Add button.
On the Mime tab, enter: virtual = wwwserver/stdcgi | actual = .php, and use the Add button.
Click OK
Repeat steps 2 - 6 for each extension you want to associate with PHP.
Note: Some OmniHTTPd packages come with built in PHP support. You can choose at setup time to do a custom setup, and uncheck the PHP component. We recommend you to use the latest PHP binaries. Some OmniHTTPd servers come with PHP 4 beta distributions, so you should choose not to set up the built in support, but install your own. If the server is already on your machine, use the Replace button in Step 4 and 5 to set the new, correct information.
This section contains notes and hints specific to the Sambar Server for Windows.
Note: You should read the manual installation steps first!
This list describes how to set up the ISAPI module to work with the Sambar server on Windows.
Find the file called mappings.ini (in the config directory) in the Sambar install directory.
Open mappings.ini and add the following line under [ISAPI]:
Now restart the Sambar server for the changes to take effect.
This section contains notes and hints specific to Xitami on Windows.
Note: You should read the manual installation steps first!
This list describes how to set up the PHP CGI binary to work with Xitami on Windows.
Important for CGI users: Read the faq on cgi.force_redirect for important details. This directive needs to be set to 0. If you want to use $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] you have to enable the cgi.fix_pathinfo directive.
| Warning |
By using the CGI setup, your server is open to several possible attacks. Please read our CGI security section to learn how to defend yourself from those attacks. |
Make sure the webserver is running, and point your browser to xitamis admin console (usually http://127.0.0.1/admin), and click on Configuration.
Navigate to the Filters, and put the extension which PHP should parse (i.e. .php) into the field File extensions (.xxx).
In Filter command or script put the path and name of your PHP CGI executable i.e. C:\php\php.exe for PHP 4, or C:\php\php-cgi.exe for PHP 5.
Press the 'Save' icon.
Restart the server to reflect changes.
This chapter teaches how to compile PHP from sources on windows, using Microsoft's tools. To compile PHP with cygwin, please refer to Chapter 4.
To compile and build PHP you need a Microsoft Development Environment. Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 is recommended, though Visual C++ .NET versions will also work. Since PHP 5 the free Microsoft .NET toolchain is also supported (you need to install Windows Platform SDK, Visual C++ Toolkit and .NET Framework SDK).
To extract the downloaded files you will also need a ZIP extraction utility. Windows XP and newer already include this functionality built-in.
Before you get started, you have to download:
the win32 buildtools from the PHP site at http://www.php.net/extra/win32build.zip.
the source code for the DNS name resolver used by PHP from http://www.php.net/extra/bindlib_w32.zip. This is a replacement for the resolv.lib library included in win32build.zip.
If you plan to compile PHP as a Apache module you will also need the Apache sources.
Finally, you are going to need the source to PHP itself. You can get the latest development version using anonymous CVS, a snapshot or the most recent released source tarball.
After downloading the required packages you have to extract them in a proper place:
Create a working directory where all files end up after extracting, e.g: C:\work.
Create the directory win32build under your working directory (C:\work) and unzip win32build.zip into it.
Create the directory bindlib_w32 under your working directory (C:\work) and unzip bindlib_w32.zip into it.
Extract the downloaded PHP source code into your working directory (C:\work).
Build the libraries you are going to need (or download the binaries if available) and place the headers and libs in the C:\work\win32build\include and C:\work\win32build\lib directories, respectively.
If you don't have cygwin installed with bison and flex, you also need to make the C:\work\win32build\bin directory available in the PATH, so that thoses tools can be found by the configure script.
+--C:\work | | | +--bindlib_w32 | | | | | +--arpa | | | | | +--conf | | | | | +--... | | | +--php-5.x.x | | | | | +--build | | | | | +--... | | | | | +--win32 | | | | | +--... | | | +--win32build | | | | | +--bin | | | | | +--include | | | | | +--lib |
If you aren't using Cygwin, you must also create the directories C:\usr\local\lib and then copy bison.simple from C:\work\win32build\bin to C:\usr\local\lib.
Note: If you want to use PEAR and the comfortable command line installer, the CLI-SAPI is mandatory. For more information about PEAR and the installer read the documentation at the PEAR website.
You must build the resolv.lib library. Decide whether you want to have debug symbols available (bindlib - Win32 Debug) or not (bindlib - Win32 Release), but please remember the choice you made, because the debug build will only link with PHP when it is also built in debug mode. Build the appropriate configuration:
For GUI users, launch VC++, by double-clicking in C:\work\bindlib_w32\bindlib.dsw. Then select Build=>Rebuild All.
For command line users, make sure that you either have the C++ environment variables registered, or have run vcvars.bat, and then execute one of the following commands:
msdev bindlib.dsp /MAKE "bindlib - Win32 Debug"
msdev bindlib.dsp /MAKE "bindlib - Win32 Release"
This chapter explains how to compile PHP >=5 using the new build system, which is CLI-based and very similar with the main PHP's Unix build system.
Note: This build system isn't available in PHP 4. Please refer to the Section called Building PHP using DSW files [PHP 4] instead.
Before starting, be sure you have read the Section called Putting it all together and you have built all needed libraries, like Libxml or ICU (needed for PHP >= 6).
First you should open a Visual Studio Command Prompt, which should be available under the Start menu. A regular Command Prompt window shouldn't work, as probably it doesn't have the necessary environment variables set. Then type something like cd C:\work\php-5.x.x to enter in the PHP source dir. Now you are ready to start configuring PHP.
The second step is running the buildconf batch file to make the configure script, by scanning the folder for config.w32 files. By default this command will also search in the following directories: pecl; ..\pecl; pecl\rpc; ..\pecl\rpc. Since PHP 5.1.0, you can change this behaviour by using the --add-modules-dir argument (e.g. cscript /nologo win32/build/buildconf.js --add-modules-dir=../php-gtk2 --add-modules-dir=../pecl).
The third step is configuring. To view the list of the available configuration options type cscript /nologo configure.js --help. After choosing the options that you will enable/disable, type something like: cscript /nologo configure.js --disable-foo --enable-fun-ext. Using --enable-foo=shared will attempt to build the 'foo' extension as a shared, dynamically loadable module.
The last step is compiling. To achieve this just issue the command nmake. The generated files (e.g. .exe and .dll) will be placed in either Release_TS or Debug_TS directories (if built with Thread safety), or in the Release or Debug directories otherwise.
Optionally you may also run PHP's test suite, by typing nmake test. If you want to run just a specific test, you may use the 'TESTS' variable (e.g. nmake /D TESTS=ext/sqlite/tests test - will only run sqlite's tests). To delete the files that were created during the compilation, you can use the nmake clean command.
A very useful configure option to build snapshots is --enable-snapshot-build, which add a new compiling mode (nmake build-snap). This tries to build every extension available (as shared, by default), but it will ignore build errors in individual extensions or SAPI.
Compiling PHP using the DSW files isn't supported as of PHP 5, as a much more flexible system was made available. Anyway, you can still use them, but keep in mind that they are not maintained very often, so you can have compiling problems. To compile PHP 4 for windows, this is the only available way though.
The first step is to configure MVC++ to prepare for compiling. Launch Microsoft Visual C++, and from the menu select Tools => Options. In the dialog, select the directories tab. Sequentially change the dropdown to Executables, Includes, and Library files. Your entries should look like this:
Executable files: C:\work\win32build\bin, Cygwin users: C:\cygwin\bin
Include files: C:\work\win32build\include
Library files: C:\work\win32build\lib
The best way to get started is to build the CGI version:
For GUI users, launch VC++, and then select File => Open Workspace and select C:\work\php-4.x.x\win32\php4ts.dsw. Then select Build=>Set Active Configuration and select the desired configuration, either php4ts - Win32 Debug_TS or php4ts - Win32 Release_TS. Finally select Build=>Rebuild All.
For command line users, make sure that you either have the C++ environment variables registered, or have run vcvars.bat, and then execute one of the following commands from the C:\work\php-4.x.x\win32 directory:
msdev php4ts.dsp /MAKE "php4ts - Win32 Debug_TS"
msdev php4ts.dsp /MAKE "php4ts - Win32 Release_TS"
At this point, you should have a usable php.exe in either your C:\work\php-4.x.x\Debug_TS or Release_TS subdirectories.
It is possible to do minor customization to the build process by editing the main/config.win32.h file. For example you can change the default location of php.ini, the built-in extensions, and the default location for your extensions.
Next you may want to build the CLI version which is designed to use PHP from the command line. The steps are the same as for building the CGI version, except you have to select the php4ts_cli - Win32 Debug_TS or php4ts_cli - Win32 Release_TS project file. After a successful compiling run you will find the php.exe in either the directory Release_TS\cli\ or Debug_TS\cli\.
In order to build the SAPI module (php4isapi.dll) for integrating PHP with Microsoft IIS, set your active configuration to php4isapi-whatever-config and build the desired dll.
After installing PHP and a webserver on Windows, you will probably want to install some extensions for added functionality. You can choose which extensions you would like to load when PHP starts by modifying your php.ini. You can also load a module dynamically in your script using dl().
The DLLs for PHP extensions are prefixed with php_.
Many extensions are built into the Windows version of PHP. This means additional DLL files, and the extension directive, are not used to load these extensions. The Windows PHP Extensions table lists extensions that require, or used to require, additional PHP DLL files. Here's a list of built in extensions:
In PHP 4 (updated PHP 4.3.11): BCMath, Caledar, COM, Ctype, FTP, MySQL, ODBC, Overload, PCRE, Session, Tokenizer, WDDX, XML and Zlib
In PHP 5 (updated PHP 5.0.4), the following changes exist. Built in: DOM, LibXML, Iconv, SimpleXML, SPL and SQLite. And the following are no longer built in: MySQL and Overload.
The default location PHP searches for extensions is C:\php4\extensions in PHP 4 and C:\php5 in PHP 5. To change this setting to reflect your setup of PHP edit your php.ini file:
You will need to change the extension_dir setting to point to the directory where your extensions lives, or where you have placed your php_*.dll files. For example:
Enable the extension(s) in php.ini you want to use by uncommenting the extension=php_*.dll lines in php.ini. This is done by deleting the leading ; from the extension you want to load.
Example 6-8. Enable Bzip2 extension for PHP-Windows
|
Some of the extensions need extra DLLs to work. Couple of them can be found in the distribution package, in the C:\php\dlls\ folder in PHP 4 or in the main folder in PHP 5, but some, for example Oracle (php_oci8.dll) require DLLs which are not bundled with the distribution package. If you are installing PHP 4, copy the bundled DLLs from C:\php\dlls folder to the main C:\php folder. Don't forget to include C:\php in the system PATH (this process is explained in a separate FAQ entry).
Some of these DLLs are not bundled with the PHP distribution. See each extensions documentation page for details. Also, read the manual section titled Installation of PECL extensions for details on PECL. An increasingly large number of PHP extensions are found in PECL, and these extensions require a separate download.
Note: If you are running a server module version of PHP remember to restart your webserver to reflect your changes to php.ini.
The following table describes some of the extensions available and required additional dlls.
Table 6-1. PHP Extensions
| Extension | Description | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| php_bz2.dll | bzip2 compression functions | None |
| php_calendar.dll | Calendar conversion functions | Built in since PHP 4.0.3 |
| php_cpdf.dll | ClibPDF functions | None |
| php_crack.dll | Crack functions | None |
| php_ctype.dll | ctype family functions | Built in since PHP 4.3.0 |
| php_curl.dll | CURL, Client URL library functions | Requires: libeay32.dll, ssleay32.dll (bundled) |
| php_cybercash.dll | Cybercash payment functions | PHP <= 4.2.0 |
| php_db.dll | DBM functions | Deprecated. Use DBA instead (php_dba.dll) |
| php_dba.dll | DBA: DataBase (dbm-style) Abstraction layer functions | None |
| php_dbase.dll | dBase functions | None |
| php_dbx.dll | dbx functions | |
| php_domxml.dll | DOM XML functions | PHP <= 4.2.0 requires: libxml2.dll (bundled) PHP >= 4.3.0 requires: iconv.dll (bundled) |
| php_dotnet.dll | .NET functions | PHP <= 4.1.1 |
| php_exif.dll | EXIF functions | php_mbstring.dll. And, php_exif.dll must be loaded after php_mbstring.dll in php.ini. |
| php_fbsql.dll | FrontBase functions | PHP <= 4.2.0 |
| php_fdf.dll | FDF: Forms Data Format functions. | Requires: fdftk.dll (bundled) |
| php_filepro.dll | filePro functions | Read-only access |
| php_ftp.dll | FTP functions | Built-in since PHP 4.0.3 |
| php_gd.dll | GD library image functions | Removed in PHP 4.3.2. Also note that truecolor functions are not available in GD1, instead, use php_gd2.dll. |
| php_gd2.dll | GD library image functions | GD2 |
| php_gettext.dll | Gettext functions | PHP <= 4.2.0 requires gnu_gettext.dll (bundled), PHP >= 4.2.3 requires libintl-1.dll, iconv.dll (bundled). |
| php_hyperwave.dll | HyperWave functions | None |
| php_iconv.dll | ICONV characterset conversion | Requires: iconv-1.3.dll (bundled), PHP >=4.2.1 iconv.dll |
| php_ifx.dll | Informix functions | Requires: Informix libraries |
| php_iisfunc.dll | IIS management functions | None |
| php_imap.dll | IMAP POP3 and NNTP functions | None |
| php_ingres.dll | Ingres II functions | Requires: Ingres II libraries |
| php_interbase.dll | InterBase functions | Requires: gds32.dll (bundled) |
| php_java.dll | Java functions | PHP <= 4.0.6 requires: jvm.dll (bundled) |
| php_ldap.dll | LDAP functions | PHP <= 4.2.0 requires libsasl.dll (bundled), PHP >= 4.3.0 requires libeay32.dll, ssleay32.dll (bundled) |
| php_mbstring.dll | Multi-Byte String functions | None |
| php_mcrypt.dll | Mcrypt Encryption functions | Requires: libmcrypt.dll |
| php_mhash.dll | Mhash functions | PHP >= 4.3.0 requires: libmhash.dll (bundled) |
| php_mime_magic.dll | Mimetype functions | Requires: magic.mime (bundled) |
| php_ming.dll | Ming functions for Flash | None |
| php_msql.dll | mSQL functions | Requires: msql.dll (bundled) |
| php_mssql.dll | MSSQL functions | Requires: ntwdblib.dll (bundled) |
| php_mysql.dll | MySQL functions | PHP >= 5.0.0, requires libmysql.dll (bundled) |
| php_mysqli.dll | MySQLi functions | PHP >= 5.0.0, requires libmysql.dll (libmysqli.dll in PHP <= 5.0.2) (bundled) |
| php_oci8.dll | Oracle 8 functions | Requires: Oracle 8.1+ client libraries |
| php_openssl.dll | OpenSSL functions | Requires: libeay32.dll (bundled) |
| php_oracle.dll | Oracle functions | Requires: Oracle 7 client libraries |
| php_overload.dll | Object overloading functions | Built in since PHP 4.3.0 |
| php_pdf.dll | PDF functions | None |
| php_pgsql.dll | PostgreSQL functions | None |
| php_printer.dll | Printer functions | None |
| php_shmop.dll | Shared Memory functions | None |
| php_snmp.dll | SNMP get and walk functions | NT only! |
| php_soap.dll | SOAP functions | PHP >= 5.0.0 |
| php_sockets.dll | Socket functions | None |
| php_sybase_ct.dll | Sybase functions | Requires: Sybase client libraries |
| php_tidy.dll | Tidy functions | PHP >= 5.0.0 |
| php_tokenizer.dll | Tokenizer functions | Built in since PHP 4.3.0 |
| php_w32api.dll | W32api functions | None |
| php_xmlrpc.dll | XML-RPC functions | PHP >= 4.2.1 requires: iconv.dll (bundled) |
| php_xslt.dll | XSLT functions | PHP <= 4.2.0 requires sablot.dll, expat.dll (bundled). PHP >= 4.2.1 requires sablot.dll, expat.dll, iconv.dll (bundled). |
| php_yaz.dll | YAZ functions | Requires: yaz.dll (bundled) |
| php_zip.dll | Zip File functions | Read only access |
| php_zlib.dll | ZLib compression functions | Built in since PHP 4.3.0 |
PECL is a repository of PHP extensions that are made available to you via the PEAR packaging system. This section of the manual is intended to demonstrate how to obtain and install PECL extensions.
These instructions assume /your/phpsrcdir/ is the path to the PHP source distribution, and that extname is the name of the PECL extension. Adjust accordingly. These instructions also assume a familiarity with the pear command.
To be useful, a shared extension must be built, installed, and loaded. The methods described below provide you with various instructions on how to build and install the extensions, but they do not automatically load them. Extensions can be loaded by adding an extension directive. To this php.ini file, or through the use of the dl() function.
When building PHP modules, it's important to have known-good versions of the required tools (autoconf, automake, libtool, etc.) See the Anonymous CVS Instructions for details on the required tools, and required versions.
There are several options for downloading PECL extensions, such as:
The PECL web site contains information about the different extensions that are offered by the PHP Development Team. The information available here includes: ChangeLog, release notes, requirements and other similar details.
pear download extname
PECL extensions that have releases listed on the PECL web site are available for download and installation using the pear command. Specific revisions may also be specified.
CVS
Most PECL extensions also reside in CVS. A web-based view may be seen at http://cvs.php.net/pecl/. To download straight from CVS, the following sequence of commands may be used. Note that phpfi is the password for user cvsread:
$ cvs -d:pserver:cvsread@cvs.php.net:/repository login $ cvs -d:pserver:cvsread@cvs.php.net:/repository co pecl/extname |
Windows downloads
Windows users may find compiled PECL binaries by downloading the Collection of PECL modules from the PHP Downloads page, and by retrieving a PECL Snapshot. To compile PHP under Windows, read the appropriate chapter.
As with any other PHP extension DLL, installation is as simple as copying the PECL extension DLLs into the extension_dir folder and loading them from php.ini. For example, add the following line to your php.ini:
extension=php_extname.dll |
After doing this, restart the web server.
PEAR makes it easy to create shared PHP extensions. Using the pear command, do the following:
$ pear install extname |
This will download the source for extname, compile, and install extname.so into your extension_dir. extname.so may then be loaded via php.ini
By default, the pear command will not install packages that are marked with the alpha or beta state. If no stable packages are available, you may install a beta package using the following command:
$ pear install extname-beta |
You may also install a specific version using this variant:
$ pear install extname-0.1 |
Sometimes, using the pear installer is not an option. This could be because you're behind a firewall, or it could be because the extension you want to install is not available as a PEAR compatible package, such as unreleased extensions from CVS. If you need to build such an extension, you can use the lower-level build tools to perform the build manually.
The phpize command is used to prepare the build environment for a PHP extension. In the following sample, the sources for an extension are in a directory named extname:
$ cd extname $ phpize $ ./configure $ make # make install |
A successful install will have created extname.so and put it into the PHP extensions directory. You'll need to and adjust php.ini and add an extension=extname.so line before you can use the extension.
If the system is missing the phpize command, and precompiled packages (like RPM's) are used, be sure to also install the appropriate devel version of the PHP package as they often include the phpize command along with the appropriate header files to build PHP and its extensions.
Execute phpize --help to display additional usage information.
You might find that you need to build a PECL extension statically into your PHP binary. To do this, you'll need to place the extension source under the php-src/ext/ directory and tell the PHP build system to regenerate its configure script.
$ cd /your/phpsrcdir/ext $ pear download extname $ gzip -d < extname.tgz | tar -xvf - $ mv extname-x.x.x extname |
This will result in the following directory:
/your/phpsrcdir/ext/extname |
From here, force PHP to rebuild the configure script, and then build PHP as normal:
$ cd /your/phpsrcdir $ rm configure $ ./buildconf --force $ ./configure --help $ ./configure --with-extname --enable-someotherext --with-foobar $ make $ make install |
Note: To run the 'buildconf' script you need autoconf 2.13 and automake 1.4+ (newer versions of autoconf may work, but are not supported).
Whether --enable-extname or --with-extname is used depends on the extension. Typically an extension that does not require external libraries uses --enable. To be sure, run the following after buildconf:
$ ./configure --help | grep extname |
Some problems are more common than others. The most common ones are listed in the PHP FAQ, part of this manual.
If you are still stuck, someone on the PHP installation mailing list may be able to help you. You should check out the archive first, in case someone already answered someone else who had the same problem as you. The archives are available from the support page on http://www.php.net/support.php. To subscribe to the PHP installation mailing list, send an empty mail to php-install-subscribe@lists.php.net. The mailing list address is php-install@lists.php.net.
If you want to get help on the mailing list, please try to be precise and give the necessary details about your environment (which operating system, what PHP version, what web server, if you are running PHP as CGI or a server module, safe mode, etc...), and preferably enough code to make others able to reproduce and test your problem.
If you think you have found a bug in PHP, please report it. The PHP developers probably don't know about it, and unless you report it, chances are it won't be fixed. You can report bugs using the bug-tracking system at http://bugs.php.net/. Please do not send bug reports in mailing list or personal letters. The bug system is also suitable to submit feature requests.
Read the How to report a bug document before submitting any bug reports!
The configuration file (called php3.ini in PHP 3, and simply php.ini as of PHP 4) is read when PHP starts up. For the server module versions of PHP, this happens only once when the web server is started. For the CGI and CLI version, it happens on every invocation.
php.ini is searched in these locations (in order):
SAPI module specific location (PHPIniDir directive in Apache 2, -c command line option in CGI and CLI, php_ini parameter in NSAPI, PHP_INI_PATH environment variable in THTTPD)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PHP\IniFilePath (Windows Registry location)
The PHPRC environment variable
Current working directory (for CLI)
The web server's directory (for SAPI modules), or directory of PHP (otherwise in Windows)
Windows directory (C:\windows or C:\winnt) (for Windows), or --with-config-file-path compile time option
If php-SAPI.ini exists (where SAPI is used SAPI, so the filename is e.g. php-cli.ini or php-apache.ini), it's used instead of php.ini. SAPI name can be determined by php_sapi_name().
Note: The Apache web server changes the directory to root at startup causing PHP to attempt to read php.ini from the root filesystem if it exists.
The php.ini directives handled by extensions are documented respectively on the pages of the extensions themselves. The list of the core directives is available in the appendix. Probably not all PHP directives are documented in the manual though. For a complete list of directives available in your PHP version, please read your well commented php.ini file. Alternatively, you may find the the latest php.ini from CVS helpful too.
Example 9-1. php.ini example
|
Since PHP 5.1.0, it is possible to refer to existing .ini variables from within .ini files. Example: open_basedir = ${open_basedir} ":/new/dir".
When using PHP as an Apache module, you can also change the configuration settings using directives in Apache configuration files (e.g. httpd.conf) and .htaccess files. You will need "AllowOverride Options" or "AllowOverride All" privileges to do so.
With PHP 4 and PHP 5, there are several Apache directives that allow you to change the PHP configuration from within the Apache configuration files. For a listing of which directives are PHP_INI_ALL, PHP_INI_PERDIR, or PHP_INI_SYSTEM, have a look at the List of php.ini directives appendix.
Note: With PHP 3, there are Apache directives that correspond to each configuration setting in the php3.ini name, except the name is prefixed by "php3_".
Sets the value of the specified directive. Can be used only with PHP_INI_ALL and PHP_INI_PERDIR type directives. To clear a previously set value use none as the value.
Note: Don't use php_value to set boolean values. php_flag (see below) should be used instead.
Used to set a boolean configuration directive. Can be used only with PHP_INI_ALL and PHP_INI_PERDIR type directives.
Sets the value of the specified directive. This can not be used in .htaccess files. Any directive type set with php_admin_value can not be overridden by .htaccess or virtualhost directives. To clear a previously set value use none as the value.
Used to set a boolean configuration directive. This can not be used in .htaccess files. Any directive type set with php_admin_flag can not be overridden by .htaccess or virtualhost directives.
Example 9-2. Apache configuration example
|
| Caution |
PHP constants do not exist outside of PHP. For example, in httpd.conf you can not use PHP constants such as E_ALL or E_NOTICE to set the error_reporting directive as they will have no meaning and will evaluate to 0. Use the associated bitmask values instead. These constants can be used in php.ini |
When running PHP on Windows, the configuration values can be modified on a per-directory basis using the Windows registry. The configuration values are stored in the registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\PHP\Per Directory Values, in the sub-keys corresponding to the path names. For example, configuration values for the directory c:\inetpub\wwwroot would be stored in the key HKLM\SOFTWARE\PHP\Per Directory Values\c\inetpub\wwwroot. The settings for the directory would be active for any script running from this directory or any subdirectory of it. The values under the key should have the name of the PHP configuration directive and the string value. PHP constants in the values are not parsed. However, only configuration values changeable in PHP_INI_USER can be set this way, PHP_INI_PERDIR values can not.
Regardless of how you run PHP, you can change certain values at runtime of your scripts through ini_set(). See the documentation on the ini_set() page for more information.
If you are interested in a complete list of configuration settings on your system with their current values, you can execute the phpinfo() function, and review the resulting page. You can also access the values of individual configuration directives at runtime using ini_get() or get_cfg_var().
When PHP parses a file, it looks for opening and closing tags, which tell PHP to start and stop interpreting the code between them. Parsing in this manner allows php to be embedded in all sorts of different documents, as everything outside of a pair of opening and closing tags is ignored by the PHP parser. Most of the time you will see php embedded in HTML documents, as in this example.
<p>This is going to be ignored.</p> <?php echo 'While this is going to be parsed.'; ?> <p>This will also be ignored.</p> |
You can also use more advanced structures:
There are four different pairs of opening and closing tags which can be used in php. Two of those, <?php ?> and <script language="php"> </script>, are always available. The other two are short tags and ASP style tags, and can be turned on and off from the php.ini configuration file. As such, while some people find short tags and ASP style tags convenient, they are less portable, and generally not recommended.
Note: Also note that if you are embedding PHP within XML or XHTML you will need to use the <?php ?> tags to remain compliant with standards.
Example 10-2. PHP Opening and Closing Tags
|
While the tags seen in examples one and two are both always available, example one is the most commonly used, and recommended, of the two.
Short tags (example three) are only available when they are enabled via the short_open_tag php.ini configuration file directive, or if php was configured with the --enable-short-tags option.
Note: If you are using PHP 3 you may also enable short tags via the short_tags() function. This is only available in PHP 3!
ASP style tags (example four) are only available when they are enabled via the asp_tags php.ini configuration file directive.
Note: Support for ASP tags was added in 3.0.4.
Note: Using short tags should be avoided when developing applications or libraries that are meant for redistribution, or deployment on PHP servers which are not under your control, because short tags may not be supported on the target server. For portable, redistributable code, be sure not to use short tags.
As in C or Perl, PHP requires instructions to be terminated with a semicolon at the end of each statement. The closing tag of a block of PHP code automatically implies a semicolon; you do not need to have a semicolon terminating the last line of a PHP block. The closing tag for the block will include the immediately trailing newline if one is present.
<?php
echo 'This is a test';
?>
<?php echo 'This is a test' ?>
<?php echo 'We omitted the last closing tag'; |
Note: The closing tag of a PHP block at the end of a file is optional, and in some cases omitting it is helpful when using include() or require(), so unwanted whitespace will not occur at the end of files, and you will still be able to add headers to the response later. It is also handy if you use output buffering, and would not like to see added unwanted whitespace at the end of the parts generated by the included files.
PHP supports 'C', 'C++' and Unix shell-style (Perl style) comments. For example:
<?php
echo 'This is a test'; // This is a one-line c++ style comment
/* This is a multi line comment
yet another line of comment */
echo 'This is yet another test';
echo 'One Final Test'; # This is a one-line shell-style comment
?> |
The "one-line" comment styles only comment to the end of the line or the current block of PHP code, whichever comes first. This means that HTML code after // ... ?> or # ... ?> WILL be printed: ?> breaks out of PHP mode and returns to HTML mode, and // or # cannot influence that. If the asp_tags configuration directive is enabled, it behaves the same with // %> and # %>. However, the </script> tag doesn't break out of PHP mode in a one-line comment.
<h1>This is an <?php # echo 'simple';?> example.</h1> <p>The header above will say 'This is an example'.</p> |
'C' style comments end at the first */ encountered. Make sure you don't nest 'C' style comments. It is easy to make this mistake if you are trying to comment out a large block of code.
PHP supports eight primitive types.
Four scalar types:
Two compound types: And finally two special types: This manual also introduces some pseudo-types for readability reasons: You may also find some references to the type "double". Consider double the same as float, the two names exist only for historic reasons.The type of a variable is usually not set by the programmer; rather, it is decided at runtime by PHP depending on the context in which that variable is used.
Note: If you want to check out the type and value of a certain expression, use var_dump().
Note: If you simply want a human-readable representation of the type for debugging, use gettype(). To check for a certain type, do not use gettype(), but use the is_type functions. Some examples:
<?php $a_bool = TRUE; // a boolean $a_str = "foo"; // a string $a_str2 = 'foo'; // a string $an_int = 12; // an integer echo gettype($a_bool); // prints out: boolean echo gettype($a_str); // prints out: string // If this is an integer, increment it by four if (is_int($an_int)) { $an_int += 4; } // If $bool is a string, print it out // (does not print out anything) if (is_string($a_bool)) { echo "String: $a_bool"; } ?>
If you would like to force a variable to be converted to a certain type, you may either cast the variable or use the settype() function on it.
Note that a variable may be evaluated with different values in certain situations, depending on what type it is at the time. For more information, see the section on Type Juggling. Also, you may be interested in viewing the type comparison tables, as they show examples of various type related comparisons.
This is the easiest type. A boolean expresses a truth value. It can be either TRUE or FALSE.
Note: The boolean type was introduced in PHP 4.
To specify a boolean literal, use either the keyword TRUE or FALSE. Both are case-insensitive.
Usually you use some kind of operator which returns a boolean value, and then pass it on to a control structure.
To explicitly convert a value to boolean, use either the (bool) or the (boolean) cast. However, in most cases you do not need to use the cast, since a value will be automatically converted if an operator, function or control structure requires a boolean argument.
See also Type Juggling.
When converting to boolean, the following values are considered FALSE:
the boolean FALSE itself
the integer 0 (zero)
the float 0.0 (zero)
an array with zero elements
an object with zero member variables (PHP 4 only)
the special type NULL (including unset variables)
SimpleXML objects created from empty tags
| Warning |
-1 is considered TRUE, like any other non-zero (whether negative or positive) number! |
<?php var_dump((bool) ""); // bool(false) var_dump((bool) 1); // bool(true) var_dump((bool) -2); // bool(true) var_dump((bool) "foo"); // bool(true) var_dump((bool) 2.3e5); // bool(true) var_dump((bool) array(12)); // bool(true) var_dump((bool) array()); // bool(false) var_dump((bool) "false"); // bool(true) ?> |
An integer is a number of the set Z = {..., -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, ...}.
See also: Arbitrary length integer / GMP, Floating point numbers, and Arbitrary precision / BCMath
Integers can be specified in decimal (10-based), hexadecimal (16-based) or octal (8-based) notation, optionally preceded by a sign (- or +).
If you use the octal notation, you must precede the number with a 0 (zero), to use hexadecimal notation precede the number with 0x.
If you specify a number beyond the bounds of the integer type, it will be interpreted as a float instead. Also, if you perform an operation that results in a number beyond the bounds of the integer type, a float will be returned instead.
<?php $large_number = 2147483647; var_dump($large_number); // output: int(2147483647) $large_number = 2147483648; var_dump($large_number); // output: float(2147483648) // it's true also for hexadecimal specified integers between 2^31 and 2^32-1: var_dump( 0xffffffff ); // output: float(4294967295) // this doesn't go for hexadecimal specified integers above 2^32-1: var_dump( 0x100000000 ); // output: int(2147483647) $million = 1000000; $large_number = 50000 * $million; var_dump($large_number); // output: float(50000000000) ?> |
| Warning |
Unfortunately, there was a bug in PHP so that this does not always work correctly when there are negative numbers involved. For example: when you do -50000 * $million, the result will be -429496728. However, when both operands are positive there is no problem. This is solved in PHP 4.1.0. |
There is no integer division operator in PHP. 1/2 yields the float 0.5. You can cast the value to an integer to always round it downwards, or you can use the round() function.
To explicitly convert a value to integer, use either the (int) or the (integer) cast. However, in most cases you do not need to use the cast, since a value will be automatically converted if an operator, function or control structure requires an integer argument. You can also convert a value to integer with the function intval().
See also type-juggling.
When converting from float to integer, the number will be rounded towards zero.
If the float is beyond the boundaries of integer (usually +/- 2.15e+9 = 2^31), the result is undefined, since the float hasn't got enough precision to give an exact integer result. No warning, not even a notice will be issued in this case!
| Warning |
Never cast an unknown fraction to integer, as this can sometimes lead to unexpected results. See for more information the warning about float-precision. |
| Caution |
Behaviour of converting to integer is undefined for other types. Currently, the behaviour is the same as if the value was first converted to boolean. However, do not rely on this behaviour, as it can change without notice. |
Floating point numbers (AKA "floats", "doubles" or "real numbers") can be specified using any of the following syntaxes:
Formally:LNUM [0-9]+
DNUM ([0-9]*[\.]{LNUM}) | ({LNUM}[\.][0-9]*)
EXPONENT_DNUM ( ({LNUM} | {DNUM}) [eE][+-]? {LNUM}) |
| Floating point precision |
It is quite usual that simple decimal fractions like 0.1 or 0.7 cannot be converted into their internal binary counterparts without a little loss of precision. This can lead to confusing results: for example, floor((0.1+0.7)*10) will usually return 7 instead of the expected 8 as the result of the internal representation really being something like 7.9999999999.... This is related to the fact that it is impossible to exactly express some fractions in decimal notation with a finite number of digits. For instance, 1/3 in decimal form becomes 0.3333333. . .. So never trust floating number results to the last digit and never compare floating point numbers for equality. If you really need higher precision, you should use the arbitrary precision math functions or gmp functions instead. |
For information on when and how strings are converted to floats, see the section titled String conversion to numbers. For values of other types, the conversion is the same as if the value would have been converted to integer and then to float. See the Converting to integer section for more information. As of PHP 5, notice is thrown if you try to convert object to float.
A string is series of characters. In PHP, a character is the same as a byte, that is, there are exactly 256 different characters possible. This also implies that PHP has no native support of Unicode. See utf8_encode() and utf8_decode() for some Unicode support.
Note: It is no problem for a string to become very large. There is no practical bound to the size of strings imposed by PHP, so there is no reason at all to worry about long strings.
A string literal can be specified in three different ways.
The easiest way to specify a simple string is to enclose it in single quotes (the character ').
To specify a literal single quote, you will need to escape it with a backslash (\), like in many other languages. If a backslash needs to occur before a single quote or at the end of the string, you need to double it. Note that if you try to escape any other character, the backslash will also be printed! So usually there is no need to escape the backslash itself.
Note: In PHP 3, a warning will be issued at the E_NOTICE level when this happens.
Note: Unlike the two other syntaxes, variables and escape sequences for special characters will not be expanded when they occur in single quoted strings.
<?php echo 'this is a simple string'; echo 'You can also have embedded newlines in strings this way as it is okay to do'; // Outputs: Arnold once said: "I'll be back" echo 'Arnold once said: "I\'ll be back"'; // Outputs: You deleted C:\*.*? echo 'You deleted C:\\*.*?'; // Outputs: You deleted C:\*.*? echo 'You deleted C:\*.*?'; // Outputs: This will not expand: \n a newline echo 'This will not expand: \n a newline'; // Outputs: Variables do not $expand $either echo 'Variables do not $expand $either'; ?> |
If the string is enclosed in double-quotes ("), PHP understands more escape sequences for special characters:
Table 11-1. Escaped characters
| sequence | meaning |
|---|---|
| \n | linefeed (LF or 0x0A (10) in ASCII) |
| \r | carriage return (CR or 0x0D (13) in ASCII) |
| \t | horizontal tab (HT or 0x09 (9) in ASCII) |
| \\ | backslash |
| \$ | dollar sign |
| \" | double-quote |
| \[0-7]{1,3} | the sequence of characters matching the regular expression is a character in octal notation |
| \x[0-9A-Fa-f]{1,2} | the sequence of characters matching the regular expression is a character in hexadecimal notation |
Again, if you try to escape any other character, the backslash will be printed too! Before PHP 5.1.1, backslash in \{$var} hasn't been printed.
But the most important feature of double-quoted strings is the fact that variable names will be expanded. See string parsing for details.
Another way to delimit strings is by using heredoc syntax ("<<<"). One should provide an identifier after <<<, then the string, and then the same identifier to close the quotation.
The closing identifier must begin in the first column of the line. Also, the identifier used must follow the same naming rules as any other label in PHP: it must contain only alphanumeric characters and underscores, and must start with a non-digit character or underscore.
| Warning | |
It is very important to note that the line with the closing identifier contains no other characters, except possibly a semicolon (;). That means especially that the identifier may not be indented, and there may not be any spaces or tabs after or before the semicolon. It's also important to realize that the first character before the closing identifier must be a newline as defined by your operating system. This is \r on Macintosh for example. Closing delimiter (possibly followed by a semicolon) must be followed by a newline too. If this rule is broken and the closing identifier is not "clean" then it's not considered to be a closing identifier and PHP will continue looking for one. If in this case a proper closing identifier is not found then a parse error will result with the line number being at the end of the script. It is not allowed to use heredoc syntax in initializing class members. Use other string syntaxes instead. |
Heredoc text behaves just like a double-quoted string, without the double-quotes. This means that you do not need to escape quotes in your here docs, but you can still use the escape codes listed above. Variables are expanded, but the same care must be taken when expressing complex variables inside a heredoc as with strings.
Example 11-4. Heredoc string quoting example
|
Note: Heredoc support was added in PHP 4.
When a string is specified in double quotes or with heredoc, variables are parsed within it.
There are two types of syntax: a simple one and a complex one. The simple syntax is the most common and convenient. It provides a way to parse a variable, an array value, or an object property.
The complex syntax was introduced in PHP 4, and can be recognised by the curly braces surrounding the expression.
If a dollar sign ($) is encountered, the parser will greedily take as many tokens as possible to form a valid variable name. Enclose the variable name in curly braces if you want to explicitly specify the end of the name.
<?php
$beer = 'Heineken';
echo "$beer's taste is great"; // works, "'" is an invalid character for varnames
echo "He drank some $beers"; // won't work, 's' is a valid character for varnames
echo "He drank some ${beer}s"; // works
echo "He drank some {$beer}s"; // works
?> |
Similarly, you can also have an array index or an object property parsed. With array indices, the closing square bracket (]) marks the end of the index. For object properties the same rules apply as to simple variables, though with object properties there doesn't exist a trick like the one with variables.
<?php
// These examples are specific to using arrays inside of strings.
// When outside of a string, always quote your array string keys
// and do not use {braces} when outside of strings either.
// Let's show all errors
error_reporting(E_ALL);
$fruits = array('strawberry' => 'red', 'banana' => 'yellow');
// Works but note that this works differently outside string-quotes
echo "A banana is $fruits[banana].";
// Works
echo "A banana is {$fruits['banana']}.";
// Works but PHP looks for a constant named banana first
// as described below.
echo "A banana is {$fruits[banana]}.";
// Won't work, use braces. This results in a parse error.
echo "A banana is $fruits['banana'].";
// Works
echo "A banana is " . $fruits['banana'] . ".";
// Works
echo "This square is $square->width meters broad.";
// Won't work. For a solution, see the complex syntax.
echo "This square is $square->width00 centimeters broad.";
?> |
For anything more complex, you should use the complex syntax.
This isn't called complex because the syntax is complex, but because you can include complex expressions this way.
In fact, you can include any value that is in the namespace in strings with this syntax. You simply write the expression the same way as you would outside the string, and then include it in { and }. Since you can't escape '{', this syntax will only be recognised when the $ is immediately following the {. (Use "{\$" to get a literal "{$"). Some examples to make it clear:
<?php
// Let's show all errors
error_reporting(E_ALL);
$great = 'fantastic';
// Won't work, outputs: This is { fantastic}
echo "This is { $great}";
// Works, outputs: This is fantastic
echo "This is {$great}";
echo "This is ${great}";
// Works
echo "This square is {$square->width}00 centimeters broad.";
// Works
echo "This works: {$arr[4][3]}";
// This is wrong for the same reason as $foo[bar] is wrong
// outside a string. In other words, it will still work but
// because PHP first looks for a constant named foo, it will
// throw an error of level E_NOTICE (undefined constant).
echo "This is wrong: {$arr[foo][3]}";
// Works. When using multi-dimensional arrays, always use
// braces around arrays when inside of strings
echo "This works: {$arr['foo'][3]}";
// Works.
echo "This works: " . $arr['foo'][3];
echo "You can even write {$obj->values[3]->name}";
echo "This is the value of the var named $name: {${$name}}";
?> |
Characters within strings may be accessed and modified by specifying the zero-based offset of the desired character after the string using square array-brackets like $str[42] so think of a string as an array of characters.
Note: They may also be accessed using braces like $str{42} for the same purpose. However, using square array-brackets is preferred.
Example 11-5. Some string examples
|
Strings may be concatenated using the '.' (dot) operator. Note that the '+' (addition) operator will not work for this. Please see String operators for more information.
There are a lot of useful functions for string modification.
See the string functions section for general functions, the regular expression functions for advanced find&replacing (in two tastes: Perl and POSIX extended).
There are also functions for URL-strings, and functions to encrypt/decrypt strings (mcrypt and mhash).
Finally, if you still didn't find what you're looking for, see also the character type functions.
You can convert a value to a string using the (string) cast, or the strval() function. String conversion is automatically done in the scope of an expression for you where a string is needed. This happens when you use the echo() or print() functions, or when you compare a variable value to a string. Reading the manual sections on Types and Type Juggling will make the following clearer. See also settype().
A boolean TRUE value is converted to the string "1", the FALSE value is represented as "" (empty string). This way you can convert back and forth between boolean and string values.
An integer or a floating point number (float) is converted to a string representing the number with its digits (including the exponent part for floating point numbers).
Arrays are always converted to the string "Array", so you cannot dump out the contents of an array with echo() or print() to see what is inside them. To view one element, you'd do something like echo $arr['foo']. See below for tips on dumping/viewing the entire contents.
Objects are always converted to the string "Object". If you would like to print out the member variable values of an object for debugging reasons, read the paragraphs below. If you would like to find out the class name of which an object is an instance of, use get_class(). As of PHP 5, __toString() method is used if applicable.
Resources are always converted to strings with the structure "Resource id #1" where 1 is the unique number of the resource assigned by PHP during runtime. If you would like to get the type of the resource, use get_resource_type().
NULL is always converted to an empty string.
As you can see above, printing out the arrays, objects or resources does not provide you any useful information about the values themselves. Look at the functions print_r() and var_dump() for better ways to print out values for debugging.
You can also convert PHP values to strings to store them permanently. This method is called serialization, and can be done with the function serialize(). You can also serialize PHP values to XML structures, if you have WDDX support in your PHP setup.
When a string is evaluated as a numeric value, the resulting value and type are determined as follows.
The string will evaluate as a float if it contains any of the characters '.', 'e', or 'E'. Otherwise, it will evaluate as an integer.
The value is given by the initial portion of the string. If the string starts with valid numeric data, this will be the value used. Otherwise, the value will be 0 (zero). Valid numeric data is an optional sign, followed by one or more digits (optionally containing a decimal point), followed by an optional exponent. The exponent is an 'e' or 'E' followed by one or more digits.
<?php $foo = 1 + "10.5"; // $foo is float (11.5) $foo = 1 + "-1.3e3"; // $foo is float (-1299) $foo = 1 + "bob-1.3e3"; // $foo is integer (1) $foo = 1 + "bob3"; // $foo is integer (1) $foo = 1 + "10 Small Pigs"; // $foo is integer (11) $foo = 4 + "10.2 Little Piggies"; // $foo is float (14.2) $foo = "10.0 pigs " + 1; // $foo is float (11) $foo = "10.0 pigs " + 1.0; // $foo is float (11) ?> |
For more information on this conversion, see the Unix manual page for strtod(3).
If you would like to test any of the examples in this section, you can cut and paste the examples and insert the following line to see for yourself what's going on:
Do not expect to get the code of one character by converting it to integer (as you would do in C for example). Use the functions ord() and chr() to convert between charcodes and characters.
An array in PHP is actually an ordered map. A map is a type that maps values to keys. This type is optimized in several ways, so you can use it as a real array, or a list (vector), hashtable (which is an implementation of a map), dictionary, collection, stack, queue and probably more. Because you can have another PHP array as a value, you can also quite easily simulate trees.
Explanation of those data structures is beyond the scope of this manual, but you'll find at least one example for each of them. For more information we refer you to external literature about this broad topic.
An array can be created by the array() language-construct. It takes a certain number of comma-separated key => value pairs.
array( [key =>] value
, ...
)
// key may be an integer or string
// value may be any value |
A key may be either an integer or a string. If a key is the standard representation of an integer, it will be interpreted as such (i.e. "8" will be interpreted as 8, while "08" will be interpreted as "08"). Floats in key are truncated to integer. There are no different indexed and associative array types in PHP; there is only one array type, which can both contain integer and string indices.
A value can be of any PHP type.
<?php
$arr = array("somearray" => array(6 => 5, 13 => 9, "a" => 42));
echo $arr["somearray"][6]; // 5
echo $arr["somearray"][13]; // 9
echo $arr["somearray"]["a"]; // 42
?> |
If you do not specify a key for a given value, then the maximum of the integer indices is taken, and the new key will be that maximum value + 1. If you specify a key that already has a value assigned to it, that value will be overwritten.
<?php // This array is the same as ... array(5 => 43, 32, 56, "b" => 12); // ...this array array(5 => 43, 6 => 32, 7 => 56, "b" => 12); ?> |
| Warning |
As of PHP 4.3.0, the index generation behaviour described above has changed. Now, if you append to an array in which the current maximum key is negative, then the next key created will be zero (0). Before, the new index would have been set to the largest existing key + 1, the same as positive indices are. |
Using TRUE as a key will evaluate to integer 1 as key. Using FALSE as a key will evaluate to integer 0 as key. Using NULL as a key will evaluate to the empty string. Using the empty string as key will create (or overwrite) a key with the empty string and its value; it is not the same as using empty brackets.
You cannot use arrays or objects as keys. Doing so will result in a warning: Illegal offset type.
You can also modify an existing array by explicitly setting values in it.
This is done by assigning values to the array while specifying the key in brackets. You can also omit the key, add an empty pair of brackets ("[]") to the variable name in that case.
$arr[key] = value; $arr[] = value; // key may be an integer or string // value may be any value |
<?php
$arr = array(5 => 1, 12 => 2);
$arr[] = 56; // This is the same as $arr[13] = 56;
// at this point of the script
$arr["x"] = 42; // This adds a new element to
// the array with key "x"
unset($arr[5]); // This removes the element from the array
unset($arr); // This deletes the whole array
?> |
Note: As mentioned above, if you provide the brackets with no key specified, then the maximum of the existing integer indices is taken, and the new key will be that maximum value + 1 . If no integer indices exist yet, the key will be 0 (zero). If you specify a key that already has a value assigned to it, that value will be overwritten.
Warning As of PHP 4.3.0, the index generation behaviour described above has changed. Now, if you append to an array in which the current maximum key is negative, then the next key created will be zero (0). Before, the new index would have been set to the largest existing key + 1, the same as positive indices are.
Note that the maximum integer key used for this need not currently exist in the array. It simply must have existed in the array at some time since the last time the array was re-indexed. The following example illustrates:
<?php // Create a simple array. $array = array(1, 2, 3, 4, 5); print_r($array); // Now delete every item, but leave the array itself intact: foreach ($array as $i => $value) { unset($array[$i]); } print_r($array); // Append an item (note that the new key is 5, instead of 0 as you // might expect). $array[] = 6; print_r($array); // Re-index: $array = array_values($array); $array[] = 7; print_r($array); ?>The above example will output:
Array ( [0] => 1 [1] => 2 [2] => 3 [3] => 4 [4] => 5 ) Array ( ) Array ( [5] => 6 ) Array ( [0] => 6 [1] => 7 )
There are quite a few useful functions for working with arrays. See the array functions section.
Note: The unset() function allows unsetting keys of an array. Be aware that the array will NOT be reindexed. If you only use "usual integer indices" (starting from zero, increasing by one), you can achieve the reindex effect by using array_values().
The foreach control structure exists specifically for arrays. It provides an easy way to traverse an array.
You should always use quotes around a string literal array index. For example, use $foo['bar'] and not $foo[bar]. But why is $foo[bar] wrong? You might have seen the following syntax in old scripts:
This is wrong, but it works. Then, why is it wrong? The reason is that this code has an undefined constant (bar) rather than a string ('bar' - notice the quotes), and PHP may in future define constants which, unfortunately for your code, have the same name. It works because PHP automatically converts a bare string (an unquoted string which does not correspond to any known symbol) into a string which contains the bare string. For instance, if there is no defined constant named bar, then PHP will substitute in the string 'bar' and use that.Note: This does not mean to always quote the key. You do not want to quote keys which are constants or variables, as this will prevent PHP from interpreting them.
<?php error_reporting(E_ALL); ini_set('display_errors', true); ini_set('html_errors', false); // Simple array: $array = array(1, 2); $count = count($array); for ($i = 0; $i < $count; $i++) { echo "\nChecking $i: \n"; echo "Bad: " . $array['$i'] . "\n"; echo "Good: " . $array[$i] . "\n"; echo "Bad: {$array['$i']}\n"; echo "Good: {$array[$i]}\n"; } ?>Note: The above example will output:
More examples to demonstrate this fact:
<?php
// Let's show all errors
error_reporting(E_ALL);
$arr = array('fruit' => 'apple', 'veggie' => 'carrot');
// Correct
print $arr['fruit']; // apple
print $arr['veggie']; // carrot
// Incorrect. This works but also throws a PHP error of
// level E_NOTICE because of an undefined constant named fruit
//
// Notice: Use of undefined constant fruit - assumed 'fruit' in...
print $arr[fruit]; // apple
// Let's define a constant to demonstrate what's going on. We
// will assign value 'veggie' to a constant named fruit.
define('fruit', 'veggie');
// Notice the difference now
print $arr['fruit']; // apple
print $arr[fruit]; // carrot
// The following is okay as it's inside a string. Constants are not
// looked for within strings so no E_NOTICE error here
print "Hello $arr[fruit]"; // Hello apple
// With one exception, braces surrounding arrays within strings
// allows constants to be looked for
print "Hello {$arr[fruit]}"; // Hello carrot
print "Hello {$arr['fruit']}"; // Hello apple
// This will not work, results in a parse error such as:
// Parse error: parse error, expecting T_STRING' or T_VARIABLE' or T_NUM_STRING'
// This of course applies to using autoglobals in strings as well
print "Hello $arr['fruit']";
print "Hello $_GET['foo']";
// Concatenation is another option
print "Hello " . $arr['fruit']; // Hello apple
?> |
When you turn error_reporting() up to show E_NOTICE level errors (such as setting it to E_ALL) then you will see these errors. By default, error_reporting is turned down to not show them.
As stated in the syntax section, there must be an expression between the square brackets ('[' and ']'). That means that you can write things like this:
This is an example of using a function return value as the array index. PHP also knows about constants, as you may have seen the E_* ones before.<?php $error_descriptions[E_ERROR] = "A fatal error has occured"; $error_descriptions[E_WARNING] = "PHP issued a warning"; $error_descriptions[E_NOTICE] = "This is just an informal notice"; ?> |
<?php $error_descriptions[1] = "A fatal error has occured"; $error_descriptions[2] = "PHP issued a warning"; $error_descriptions[8] = "This is just an informal notice"; ?> |
As we already explained in the above examples, $foo[bar] still works but is wrong. It works, because bar is due to its syntax expected to be a constant expression. However, in this case no constant with the name bar exists. PHP now assumes that you meant bar literally, as the string "bar", but that you forgot to write the quotes.
At some point in the future, the PHP team might want to add another constant or keyword, or you may introduce another constant into your application, and then you get in trouble. For example, you already cannot use the words empty and default this way, since they are special reserved keywords.
Note: To reiterate, inside a double-quoted string, it's valid to not surround array indexes with quotes so "$foo[bar]" is valid. See the above examples for details on why as well as the section on variable parsing in strings.
For any of the types: integer, float, string, boolean and resource, if you convert a value to an array, you get an array with one element (with index 0), which is the scalar value you started with.
If you convert an object to an array, you get the properties (member variables) of that object as the array's elements. The keys are the member variable names.
If you convert a NULL value to an array, you get an empty array.
The array type in PHP is very versatile, so here will be some examples to show you the full power of arrays.
<?php
// this
$a = array( 'color' => 'red',
'taste' => 'sweet',
'shape' => 'round',
'name' => 'apple',
4 // key will be 0
);
// is completely equivalent with
$a['color'] = 'red';
$a['taste'] = 'sweet';
$a['shape'] = 'round';
$a['name'] = 'apple';
$a[] = 4; // key will be 0
$b[] = 'a';
$b[] = 'b';
$b[] = 'c';
// will result in the array array(0 => 'a' , 1 => 'b' , 2 => 'c'),
// or simply array('a', 'b', 'c')
?> |
Example 11-6. Using array()
|
Changing values of the array directly is possible since PHP 5 by passing them as reference. Prior versions need workaround:
Example 11-8. Collection
The above example will output:
|
This example creates a one-based array.
Arrays are ordered. You can also change the order using various sorting functions. See the array functions section for more information. You can count the number of items in an array using the count() function.
Because the value of an array can be anything, it can also be another array. This way you can make recursive and multi-dimensional arrays.
Example 11-12. Recursive and multi-dimensional arrays
|
You should be aware that array assignment always involves value copying. It also means that the internal array pointer used by current() and similar functions is reset. You need to use the reference operator to copy an array by reference.
To initialize an object, you use the new statement to instantiate the object to a variable.
For a full discussion, please read the section Classes and Objects.
If an object is converted to an object, it is not modified. If a value of any other type is converted to an object, a new instance of the stdClass built in class is created. If the value was NULL, the new instance will be empty. Array converts to an object with properties named by array keys and with corresponding values. For any other value, a member variable named scalar will contain the value.
A resource is a special variable, holding a reference to an external resource. Resources are created and used by special functions. See the appendix for a listing of all these functions and the corresponding resource types.
Note: The resource type was introduced in PHP 4
See also get_resource_type().
As resource types hold special handlers to opened files, database connections, image canvas areas and the like, you cannot convert any value to a resource.
Due to the reference-counting system introduced with PHP 4's Zend Engine, it is automatically detected when a resource is no longer referred to (just like Java). When this is the case, all resources that were in use for this resource are made free by the garbage collector. For this reason, it is rarely ever necessary to free the memory manually by using some free_result function.
Note: Persistent database links are special, they are not destroyed by the garbage collector. See also the section about persistent connections.
The special NULL value represents that a variable has no value. NULL is the only possible value of type NULL.
Note: The null type was introduced in PHP 4.
A variable is considered to be NULL if
it has been assigned the constant NULL.
it has not been set to any value yet.
it has been unset().
mixed indicates that a parameter may accept multiple (but not necessarily all) types.
gettype() for example will accept all PHP types, while str_replace() will accept strings and arrays.
Some functions like call_user_func() or usort() accept user defined callback functions as a parameter. Callback functions can not only be simple functions but also object methods including static class methods.
A PHP function is simply passed by its name as a string. You can pass any builtin or user defined function with the exception of array(), echo(), empty(), eval(), exit(), isset(), list(), print() and unset().
A method of an instantiated object is passed as an array containing an object as the element with index 0 and a method name as the element with index 1.
Static class methods can also be passed without instantiating an object of that class by passing the class name instead of an object as the element with index 0.
Apart common user-defined function, create_function() can be used to create an anonymous callback function.
Example 11-13. Callback function examples
|
PHP does not require (or support) explicit type definition in variable declaration; a variable's type is determined by the context in which that variable is used. That is to say, if you assign a string value to variable $var, $var becomes a string. If you then assign an integer value to $var, it becomes an integer.
An example of PHP's automatic type conversion is the addition operator '+'. If any of the operands is a float, then all operands are evaluated as floats, and the result will be a float. Otherwise, the operands will be interpreted as integers, and the result will also be an integer. Note that this does NOT change the types of the operands themselves; the only change is in how the operands are evaluated.
<?php $foo = "0"; // $foo is string (ASCII 48) $foo += 2; // $foo is now an integer (2) $foo = $foo + 1.3; // $foo is now a float (3.3) $foo = 5 + "10 Little Piggies"; // $foo is integer (15) $foo = 5 + "10 Small Pigs"; // $foo is integer (15) ?> |
If the last two examples above seem odd, see String conversion to numbers.
If you wish to force a variable to be evaluated as a certain type, see the section on Type casting. If you wish to change the type of a variable, see settype().
If you would like to test any of the examples in this section, you can use the var_dump() function.
Note: The behaviour of an automatic conversion to array is currently undefined.
Since PHP (for historical reasons) supports indexing into strings via offsets using the same syntax as array indexing, the example above leads to a problem: should $a become an array with its first element being "f", or should "f" become the first character of the string $a?
The current versions of PHP interpret the second assignment as a string offset identification, so $a becomes "f", the result of this automatic conversion however should be considered undefined. PHP 4 introduced the new curly bracket syntax to access characters in string, use this syntax instead of the one presented above:
See the section titled String access by character for more information.
Type casting in PHP works much as it does in C: the name of the desired type is written in parentheses before the variable which is to be cast.
The casts allowed are:
(int), (integer) - cast to integer
(bool), (boolean) - cast to boolean
(float), (double), (real) - cast to float
(string) - cast to string
(array) - cast to array
(object) - cast to object
Note that tabs and spaces are allowed inside the parentheses, so the following are functionally equivalent:
Note: Instead of casting a variable to string, you can also enclose the variable in double quotes.
It may not be obvious exactly what will happen when casting between certain types. For more info, see these sections:
Variables in PHP are represented by a dollar sign followed by the name of the variable. The variable name is case-sensitive.
Variable names follow the same rules as other labels in PHP. A valid variable name starts with a letter or underscore, followed by any number of letters, numbers, or underscores. As a regular expression, it would be expressed thus: '[a-zA-Z_\x7f-\xff][a-zA-Z0-9_\x7f-\xff]*'
Note: For our purposes here, a letter is a-z, A-Z, and the ASCII characters from 127 through 255 (0x7f-0xff).
For information on variable related functions, see the Variable Functions Reference.
<?php $var = 'Bob'; $Var = 'Joe'; echo "$var, $Var"; // outputs "Bob, Joe" $4site = 'not yet'; // invalid; starts with a number $_4site = 'not yet'; // valid; starts with an underscore $täyte = 'mansikka'; // valid; 'ä' is (Extended) ASCII 228. ?> |
In PHP 3, variables are always assigned by value. That is to say, when you assign an expression to a variable, the entire value of the original expression is copied into the destination variable. This means, for instance, that after assigning one variable's value to another, changing one of those variables will have no effect on the other. For more information on this kind of assignment, see the chapter on Expressions.
As of PHP 4, PHP offers another way to assign values to variables: assign by reference. This means that the new variable simply references (in other words, "becomes an alias for" or "points to") the original variable. Changes to the new variable affect the original, and vice versa.
To assign by reference, simply prepend an ampersand (&) to the beginning of the variable which is being assigned (the source variable). For instance, the following code snippet outputs 'My name is Bob' twice:
<?php $foo = 'Bob'; // Assign the value 'Bob' to $foo $bar = &$foo; // Reference $foo via $bar. $bar = "My name is $bar"; // Alter $bar... echo $bar; echo $foo; // $foo is altered too. ?> |
One important thing to note is that only named variables may be assigned by reference.
<?php
$foo = 25;
$bar = &$foo; // This is a valid assignment.
$bar = &(24 * 7); // Invalid; references an unnamed expression.
function test()
{
return 25;
}
$bar = &test(); // Invalid.
?> |
It is not necessary to initialize variables in PHP however it is a very good practice. Uninitialized variables have a default value of their type - FALSE, zero, empty string or an empty array.
Relying on the default value of an uninitialized variable is problematic in the case of including one file into another which uses the same variable name. It is also a major security risk with register_globals turned on. E_NOTICE level error is issued in case of working with uninitialized variables, however not in the case of appending elements to the uninitialized array. isset() language construct can be used to detect if a variable has been already initialized.
PHP provides a large number of predefined variables to any script which it runs. Many of these variables, however, cannot be fully documented as they are dependent upon which server is running, the version and setup of the server, and other factors. Some of these variables will not be available when PHP is run on the command line. For a listing of these variables, please see the section on Reserved Predefined Variables.
| Warning |
In PHP 4.2.0 and later, the default value for the PHP directive register_globals is off. This is a major change in PHP. Having register_globals off affects the set of predefined variables available in the global scope. For example, to get DOCUMENT_ROOT you'll use $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] instead of $DOCUMENT_ROOT, or $_GET['id'] from the URL http://www.example.com/test.php?id=3 instead of $id, or $_ENV['HOME'] instead of $HOME. For related information on this change, read the configuration entry for register_globals, the security chapter on Using Register Globals , as well as the PHP 4.1.0 and 4.2.0 Release Announcements. Using the available PHP Reserved Predefined Variables, like the superglobal arrays, is preferred. |
From version 4.1.0 onward, PHP provides an additional set of predefined arrays containing variables from the web server (if applicable), the environment, and user input. These new arrays are rather special in that they are automatically global--i.e., automatically available in every scope. For this reason, they are often known as 'autoglobals' or 'superglobals'. (There is no mechanism in PHP for user-defined superglobals.) The superglobals are listed below; however, for a listing of their contents and further discussion on PHP predefined variables and their natures, please see the section Reserved Predefined Variables. Also, you'll notice how the older predefined variables ($HTTP_*_VARS) still exist. As of PHP 5.0.0, the long PHP predefined variable arrays may be disabled with the register_long_arrays directive.
Variable variables: Superglobals cannot be used as variable variables inside functions or class methods.
Note: Even though both the superglobal and HTTP_*_VARS can exist at the same time; they are not identical, so modifying one will not change the other.
If certain variables in variables_order are not set, their appropriate PHP predefined arrays are also left empty.
PHP Superglobals
Contains a reference to every variable which is currently available within the global scope of the script. The keys of this array are the names of the global variables. $GLOBALS has existed since PHP 3.
Variables set by the web server or otherwise directly related to the execution environment of the current script. Analogous to the old $HTTP_SERVER_VARS array (which is still available, but deprecated).
Variables provided to the script via URL query string. Analogous to the old $HTTP_GET_VARS array (which is still available, but deprecated).
Variables provided to the script via HTTP POST. Analogous to the old $HTTP_POST_VARS array (which is still available, but deprecated).
Variables provided to the script via HTTP cookies. Analogous to the old $HTTP_COOKIE_VARS array (which is still available, but deprecated).
Variables provided to the script via HTTP post file uploads. Analogous to the old $HTTP_POST_FILES array (which is still available, but deprecated). See POST method uploads for more information.
Variables provided to the script via the environment. Analogous to the old $HTTP_ENV_VARS array (which is still available, but deprecated).
Variables provided to the script via the GET, POST, and COOKIE input mechanisms, and which therefore cannot be trusted. The presence and order of variable inclusion in this array is defined according to the PHP variables_order configuration directive. This array has no direct analogue in versions of PHP prior to 4.1.0. See also import_request_variables().
| Caution |
Since PHP 4.3.0, FILE information from $_FILES does not exist in $_REQUEST. |
Note: When running on the command line , this will not include the argv and argc entries; these are present in the $_SERVER array.
Variables which are currently registered to a script's session. Analogous to the old $HTTP_SESSION_VARS array (which is still available, but deprecated). See the Session handling functions section for more information.
The scope of a variable is the context within which it is defined. For the most part all PHP variables only have a single scope. This single scope spans included and required files as well. For example:
Here the $a variable will be available within the included b.inc script. However, within user-defined functions a local function scope is introduced. Any variable used inside a function is by default limited to the local function scope. For example:
<?php
$a = 1; /* global scope */
function Test()
{
echo $a; /* reference to local scope variable */
}
Test();
?> |
This script will not produce any output because the echo statement refers to a local version of the $a variable, and it has not been assigned a value within this scope. You may notice that this is a little bit different from the C language in that global variables in C are automatically available to functions unless specifically overridden by a local definition. This can cause some problems in that people may inadvertently change a global variable. In PHP global variables must be declared global inside a function if they are going to be used in that function.
First, an example use of global:
The above script will output "3". By declaring $a and $b global within the function, all references to either variable will refer to the global version. There is no limit to the number of global variables that can be manipulated by a function.
A second way to access variables from the global scope is to use the special PHP-defined $GLOBALS array. The previous example can be rewritten as:
The $GLOBALS array is an associative array with the name of the global variable being the key and the contents of that variable being the value of the array element. Notice how $GLOBALS exists in any scope, this is because $GLOBALS is a superglobal. Here's an example demonstrating the power of superglobals:
Example 12-4. Example demonstrating superglobals and scope
|
Another important feature of variable scoping is the static variable. A static variable exists only in a local function scope, but it does not lose its value when program execution leaves this scope. Consider the following example:
This function is quite useless since every time it is called it sets $a to 0 and prints "0". The $a++ which increments the variable serves no purpose since as soon as the function exits the $a variable disappears. To make a useful counting function which will not lose track of the current count, the $a variable is declared static:
Now, every time the Test() function is called it will print the value of $a and increment it.
Static variables also provide one way to deal with recursive functions. A recursive function is one which calls itself. Care must be taken when writing a recursive function because it is possible to make it recurse indefinitely. You must make sure you have an adequate way of terminating the recursion. The following simple function recursively counts to 10, using the static variable $count to know when to stop:
Note: Static variables may be declared as seen in the examples above. Trying to assign values to these variables which are the result of expressions will cause a parse error.
The Zend Engine 1, driving PHP 4, implements the static and global modifier for variables in terms of references. For example, a true global variable imported inside a function scope with the global statement actually creates a reference to the global variable. This can lead to unexpected behaviour which the following example addresses:
<?php
function test_global_ref() {
global $obj;
$obj = &new stdclass;
}
function test_global_noref() {
global $obj;
$obj = new stdclass;
}
test_global_ref();
var_dump($obj);
test_global_noref();
var_dump($obj);
?> |
Executing this example will result in the following output:
NULL
object(stdClass)(0) {
} |
A similar behaviour applies to the static statement. References are not stored statically:
<?php
function &get_instance_ref() {
static $obj;
echo 'Static object: ';
var_dump($obj);
if (!isset($obj)) {
// Assign a reference to the static variable
$obj = &new stdclass;
}
$obj->property++;
return $obj;
}
function &get_instance_noref() {
static $obj;
echo 'Static object: ';
var_dump($obj);
if (!isset($obj)) {
// Assign the object to the static variable
$obj = new stdclass;
}
$obj->property++;
return $obj;
}
$obj1 = get_instance_ref();
$still_obj1 = get_instance_ref();
echo "\n";
$obj2 = get_instance_noref();
$still_obj2 = get_instance_noref();
?> |
Executing this example will result in the following output:
Static object: NULL
Static object: NULL
Static object: NULL
Static object: object(stdClass)(1) {
["property"]=>
int(1)
} |
This example demonstrates that when assigning a reference to a static variable, it's not remembered when you call the &get_instance_ref() function a second time.
Sometimes it is convenient to be able to have variable variable names. That is, a variable name which can be set and used dynamically. A normal variable is set with a statement such as:
A variable variable takes the value of a variable and treats that as the name of a variable. In the above example, hello, can be used as the name of a variable by using two dollar signs. i.e.
At this point two variables have been defined and stored in the PHP symbol tree: $a with contents "hello" and $hello with contents "world". Therefore, this statement:
produces the exact same output as:
i.e. they both produce: hello world.
In order to use variable variables with arrays, you have to resolve an ambiguity problem. That is, if you write $$a[1] then the parser needs to know if you meant to use $a[1] as a variable, or if you wanted $$a as the variable and then the [1] index from that variable. The syntax for resolving this ambiguity is: ${$a[1]} for the first case and ${$a}[1] for the second.
| Warning |
Please note that variable variables cannot be used with PHP's Superglobal arrays within functions or class methods. |
When a form is submitted to a PHP script, the information from that form is automatically made available to the script. There are many ways to access this information, for example:
Depending on your particular setup and personal preferences, there are many ways to access data from your HTML forms. Some examples are:
Example 12-10. Accessing data from a simple POST HTML form
|
Using a GET form is similar except you'll use the appropriate GET predefined variable instead. GET also applies to the QUERY_STRING (the information after the '?' in a URL). So, for example, http://www.example.com/test.php?id=3 contains GET data which is accessible with $_GET['id']. See also $_REQUEST and import_request_variables().
Note: Superglobal arrays, like $_POST and $_GET, became available in PHP 4.1.0
As shown, before PHP 4.2.0 the default value for register_globals was on. And, in PHP 3 it was always on. The PHP community is encouraging all to not rely on this directive as it's preferred to assume it's off and code accordingly.
Note: The magic_quotes_gpc configuration directive affects Get, Post and Cookie values. If turned on, value (It's "PHP!") will automagically become (It\'s \"PHP!\"). Escaping is needed for DB insertion. See also addslashes(), stripslashes() and magic_quotes_sybase.
PHP also understands arrays in the context of form variables (see the related faq). You may, for example, group related variables together, or use this feature to retrieve values from a multiple select input. For example, let's post a form to itself and upon submission display the data:
Example 12-11. More complex form variables
|
In PHP 3, the array form variable usage is limited to single-dimensional arrays. As of PHP 4, no such restriction applies.
When submitting a form, it is possible to use an image instead of the standard submit button with a tag like:
When the user clicks somewhere on the image, the accompanying form will be transmitted to the server with two additional variables, sub_x and sub_y. These contain the coordinates of the user click within the image. The experienced may note that the actual variable names sent by the browser contains a period rather than an underscore, but PHP converts the period to an underscore automatically.
PHP transparently supports HTTP cookies as defined by Netscape's Spec. Cookies are a mechanism for storing data in the remote browser and thus tracking or identifying return users. You can set cookies using the setcookie() function. Cookies are part of the HTTP header, so the SetCookie function must be called before any output is sent to the browser. This is the same restriction as for the header() function. Cookie data is then available in the appropriate cookie data arrays, such as $_COOKIE, $HTTP_COOKIE_VARS as well as in $_REQUEST. See the setcookie() manual page for more details and examples.
If you wish to assign multiple values to a single cookie variable, you may assign it as an array. For example:
<?php
setcookie("MyCookie[foo]", 'Testing 1', time()+3600);
setcookie("MyCookie[bar]", 'Testing 2', time()+3600);
?> |
That will create two separate cookies although MyCookie will now be a single array in your script. If you want to set just one cookie with multiple values, consider using serialize() or explode() on the value first.
Note that a cookie will replace a previous cookie by the same name in your browser unless the path or domain is different. So, for a shopping cart application you may want to keep a counter and pass this along. i.e.
Example 12-12. A setcookie() example
|
Typically, PHP does not alter the names of variables when they are passed into a script. However, it should be noted that the dot (period, full stop) is not a valid character in a PHP variable name. For the reason, look at it:
<?php $varname.ext; /* invalid variable name */ ?> |
For this reason, it is important to note that PHP will automatically replace any dots in incoming variable names with underscores.
Because PHP determines the types of variables and converts them (generally) as needed, it is not always obvious what type a given variable is at any one time. PHP includes several functions which find out what type a variable is, such as: gettype(), is_array(), is_float(), is_int(), is_object(), and is_string(). See also the chapter on Types.
A constant is an identifier (name) for a simple value. As the name suggests, that value cannot change during the execution of the script (except for magic constants, which aren't actually constants). A constant is case-sensitive by default. By convention, constant identifiers are always uppercase.
The name of a constant follows the same rules as any label in PHP. A valid constant name starts with a letter or underscore, followed by any number of letters, numbers, or underscores. As a regular expression, it would be expressed thusly: [a-zA-Z_\x7f-\xff][a-zA-Z0-9_\x7f-\xff]*
Example 13-1. Valid and invalid constant names
|
Note: For our purposes here, a letter is a-z, A-Z, and the ASCII characters from 127 through 255 (0x7f-0xff).
Like superglobals, the scope of a constant is global. You can access constants anywhere in your script without regard to scope. For more information on scope, read the manual section on variable scope.
You can define a constant by using the define()-function. Once a constant is defined, it can never be changed or undefined.
Only scalar data (boolean, integer, float and string) can be contained in constants. Do not define resource constants.
You can get the value of a constant by simply specifying its name. Unlike with variables, you should not prepend a constant with a $. You can also use the function constant() to read a constant's value if you wish to obtain the constant's name dynamically. Use get_defined_constants() to get a list of all defined constants.
Note: Constants and (global) variables are in a different namespace. This implies that for example TRUE and $TRUE are generally different.
If you use an undefined constant, PHP assumes that you mean the name of the constant itself, just as if you called it as a string (CONSTANT vs "CONSTANT"). An error of level E_NOTICE will be issued when this happens. See also the manual entry on why $foo[bar] is wrong (unless you first define() bar as a constant). If you simply want to check if a constant is set, use the defined() function.
These are the differences between constants and variables:
Constants do not have a dollar sign ($) before them;
Constants may only be defined using the define() function, not by simple assignment;
Constants may be defined and accessed anywhere without regard to variable scoping rules;
Constants may not be redefined or undefined once they have been set; and
Constants may only evaluate to scalar values.
See also Class Constants.
PHP provides a large number of predefined constants to any script which it runs. Many of these constants, however, are created by various extensions, and will only be present when those extensions are available, either via dynamic loading or because they have been compiled in.
There are five magical constants that change depending on where they are used. For example, the value of __LINE__ depends on the line that it's used on in your script. These special constants are case-insensitive and are as follows:
Table 13-1. A few "magical" PHP constants
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| __LINE__ | The current line number of the file. |
| __FILE__ | The full path and filename of the file. If used inside an include, the name of the included file is returned. Since PHP 4.0.2, __FILE__ always contains an absolute path whereas in older versions it contained relative path under some circumstances. |
| __FUNCTION__ | The function name. (Added in PHP 4.3.0) As of PHP 5 this constant returns the function name as it was declared (case-sensitive). In PHP 4 its value is always lowercased. |
| __CLASS__ | The class name. (Added in PHP 4.3.0) As of PHP 5 this constant returns the class name as it was declared (case-sensitive). In PHP 4 its value is always lowercased. |
| __METHOD__ | The class method name. (Added in PHP 5.0.0) The method name is returned as it was declared (case-sensitive). |
See also get_class(), get_object_vars(), file_exists() and function_exists().
Expressions are the most important building stones of PHP. In PHP, almost anything you write is an expression. The simplest yet most accurate way to define an expression is "anything that has a value".
The most basic forms of expressions are constants and variables. When you type "$a = 5", you're assigning '5' into $a. '5', obviously, has the value 5, or in other words '5' is an expression with the value of 5 (in this case, '5' is an integer constant).
After this assignment, you'd expect $a's value to be 5 as well, so if you wrote $b = $a, you'd expect it to behave just as if you wrote $b = 5. In other words, $a is an expression with the value of 5 as well. If everything works right, this is exactly what will happen.
Slightly more complex examples for expressions are functions. For instance, consider the following function:
Assuming you're familiar with the concept of functions (if you're not, take a look at the chapter about functions), you'd assume that typing $c = foo() is essentially just like writing $c = 5, and you're right. Functions are expressions with the value of their return value. Since foo() returns 5, the value of the expression 'foo()' is 5. Usually functions don't just return a static value but compute something.
Of course, values in PHP don't have to be integers, and very often they aren't. PHP supports four scalar value types: integer values, floating point values (float), string values and boolean values (scalar values are values that you can't 'break' into smaller pieces, unlike arrays, for instance). PHP also supports two composite (non-scalar) types: arrays and objects. Each of these value types can be assigned into variables or returned from functions.
PHP takes expressions much further, in the same way many other languages do. PHP is an expression-oriented language, in the sense that almost everything is an expression. Consider the example we've already dealt with, '$a = 5'. It's easy to see that there are two values involved here, the value of the integer constant '5', and the value of $a which is being updated to 5 as well. But the truth is that there's one additional value involved here, and that's the value of the assignment itself. The assignment itself evaluates to the assigned value, in this case 5. In practice, it means that '$a = 5', regardless of what it does, is an expression with the value 5. Thus, writing something like '$b = ($a = 5)' is like writing '$a = 5; $b = 5;' (a semicolon marks the end of a statement). Since assignments are parsed in a right to left order, you can also write '$b = $a = 5'.
Another good example of expression orientation is pre- and post-increment and decrement. Users of PHP and many other languages may be familiar with the notation of variable++ and variable--. These are increment and decrement operators. In PHP/FI 2, the statement '$a++' has no value (is not an expression), and thus you can't assign it or use it in any way. PHP enhances the increment/decrement capabilities by making these expressions as well, like in C. In PHP, like in C, there are two types of increment - pre-increment and post-increment. Both pre-increment and post-increment essentially increment the variable, and the effect on the variable is identical. The difference is with the value of the increment expression. Pre-increment, which is written '++$variable', evaluates to the incremented value (PHP increments the variable before reading its value, thus the name 'pre-increment'). Post-increment, which is written '$variable++' evaluates to the original value of $variable, before it was incremented (PHP increments the variable after reading its value, thus the name 'post-increment').
A very common type of expressions are comparison expressions. These expressions evaluate to either FALSE or TRUE. PHP supports > (bigger than), >= (bigger than or equal to), == (equal), != (not equal), < (smaller than) and <= (smaller than or equal to). The language also supports a set of strict equivalence operators: === (equal to and same type) and !== (not equal to or not same type). These expressions are most commonly used inside conditional execution, such as if statements.
The last example of expressions we'll deal with here is combined operator-assignment expressions. You already know that if you want to increment $a by 1, you can simply write '$a++' or '++$a'. But what if you want to add more than one to it, for instance 3? You could write '$a++' multiple times, but this is obviously not a very efficient or comfortable way. A much more common practice is to write '$a = $a + 3'. '$a + 3' evaluates to the value of $a plus 3, and is assigned back into $a, which results in incrementing $a by 3. In PHP, as in several other languages like C, you can write this in a shorter way, which with time would become clearer and quicker to understand as well. Adding 3 to the current value of $a can be written '$a += 3'. This means exactly "take the value of $a, add 3 to it, and assign it back into $a". In addition to being shorter and clearer, this also results in faster execution. The value of '$a += 3', like the value of a regular assignment, is the assigned value. Notice that it is NOT 3, but the combined value of $a plus 3 (this is the value that's assigned into $a). Any two-place operator can be used in this operator-assignment mode, for example '$a -= 5' (subtract 5 from the value of $a), '$b *= 7' (multiply the value of $b by 7), etc.
There is one more expression that may seem odd if you haven't seen it in other languages, the ternary conditional operator:
If the value of the first subexpression is TRUE (non-zero), then the second subexpression is evaluated, and that is the result of the conditional expression. Otherwise, the third subexpression is evaluated, and that is the value.
The following example should help you understand pre- and post-increment and expressions in general a bit better:
<?php
function double($i)
{
return $i*2;
}
$b = $a = 5; /* assign the value five into the variable $a and $b */
$c = $a++; /* post-increment, assign original value of $a
(5) to $c */
$e = $d = ++$b; /* pre-increment, assign the incremented value of
$b (6) to $d and $e */
/* at this point, both $d and $e are equal to 6 */
$f = double($d++); /* assign twice the value of $d before
the increment, 2*6 = 12 to $f */
$g = double(++$e); /* assign twice the value of $e after
the increment, 2*7 = 14 to $g */
$h = $g += 10; /* first, $g is incremented by 10 and ends with the
value of 24. the value of the assignment (24) is
then assigned into $h, and $h ends with the value
of 24 as well. */
?> |
Some expressions can be considered as statements. In this case, a statement has the form of 'expr' ';' that is, an expression followed by a semicolon. In '$b=$a=5;', $a=5 is a valid expression, but it's not a statement by itself. '$b=$a=5;' however is a valid statement.
One last thing worth mentioning is the truth value of expressions. In many events, mainly in conditional execution and loops, you're not interested in the specific value of the expression, but only care about whether it means TRUE or FALSE. The constants TRUE and FALSE (case-insensitive) are the two possible boolean values. When necessary, an expression is automatically converted to boolean. See the section about type-casting for details about how.
PHP provides a full and powerful implementation of expressions, and documenting it entirely goes beyond the scope of this manual. The above examples should give you a good idea about what expressions are and how you can construct useful expressions. Throughout the rest of this manual we'll write expr to indicate any valid PHP expression.
An operator is something that you feed with one or more values (or expressions, in programming jargon) which yields another value (so that the construction itself becomes an expression). So you can think of functions or constructions that return a value (like print) as operators and those that return nothing (like echo) as any other thing.
There are three types of operators. Firstly there is the unary operator which operates on only one value, for example ! (the negation operator) or ++ (the increment operator). The second group are termed binary operators; this group contains most of the operators that PHP supports, and a list follows below in the section Operator Precedence.
The third group is the ternary operator: ?:. It should be used to select between two expressions depending on a third one, rather than to select two sentences or paths of execution. Surrounding ternary expressions with parentheses is a very good idea.
The precedence of an operator specifies how "tightly" it binds two expressions together. For example, in the expression 1 + 5 * 3, the answer is 16 and not 18 because the multiplication ("*") operator has a higher precedence than the addition ("+") operator. Parentheses may be used to force precedence, if necessary. For instance: (1 + 5) * 3 evaluates to 18. If operator precedence is equal, left to right associativity is used.
The following table lists the precedence of operators with the highest-precedence operators listed at the top of the table. Operators on the same line have equal precedence, in which case their associativity decides which order to evaluate them in.
Table 15-1. Operator Precedence
| Associativity | Operators | Additional Information |
|---|---|---|
| non-associative | new | new |
| left | [ | array() |
| non-associative | ++ -- | increment/decrement |
| non-associative | ! ~ - (int) (float) (string) (array) (object) @ | types |
| left | * / % | arithmetic |
| left | + - . | arithmetic and string |
| left | << >> | bitwise |
| non-associative | < <= > >= | comparison |
| non-associative | == != === !== | comparison |
| left | & | bitwise and references |
| left | ^ | bitwise |
| left | | | bitwise |
| left | && | logical |
| left | || | logical |
| left | ? : | ternary |
| right | = += -= *= /= .= %= &= |= ^= <<= >>= | assignment |
| left | and | logical |
| left | xor | logical |
| left | or | logical |
| left | , | many uses |
Left associativity means that the expression is evaluated from left to right, right associativity means the opposite.
Note: Although ! has a higher precedence than =, PHP will still allow expressions similar to the following: if (!$a = foo()), in which case the return value of foo() is put into $a.
Remember basic arithmetic from school? These work just like those.
Table 15-2. Arithmetic Operators
| Example | Name | Result |
|---|---|---|
| -$a | Negation | Opposite of $a. |
| $a + $b | Addition | Sum of $a and $b. |
| $a - $b | Subtraction | Difference of $a and $b. |
| $a * $b | Multiplication | Product of $a and $b. |
| $a / $b | Division | Quotient of $a and $b. |
| $a % $b | Modulus | Remainder of $a divided by $b. |
The division operator ("/") returns a float value anytime, even if the two operands are integers (or strings that get converted to integers).
Note: Remainder $a % $b is negative for negative $a.
See also the manual page on Math functions.
The basic assignment operator is "=". Your first inclination might be to think of this as "equal to". Don't. It really means that the left operand gets set to the value of the expression on the rights (that is, "gets set to").
The value of an assignment expression is the value assigned. That is, the value of "$a = 3" is 3. This allows you to do some tricky things:
In addition to the basic assignment operator, there are "combined operators" for all of the binary arithmetic, array union and string operators that allow you to use a value in an expression and then set its value to the result of that expression. For example:
<?php $a = 3; $a += 5; // sets $a to 8, as if we had said: $a = $a + 5; $b = "Hello "; $b .= "There!"; // sets $b to "Hello There!", just like $b = $b . "There!"; ?> |
Note that the assignment copies the original variable to the new one (assignment by value), so changes to one will not affect the other. This may also have relevance if you need to copy something like a large array inside a tight loop. Since PHP 4, assignment by reference has been supported, using the $var = &$othervar; syntax, but this is not possible in PHP 3. 'Assignment by reference' means that both variables end up pointing at the same data, and nothing is copied anywhere. To learn more about references, please read References explained.
Bitwise operators allow you to turn specific bits within an integer on or off. If both the left- and right-hand parameters are strings, the bitwise operator will operate on the characters' ASCII values.
<?php
echo 12 ^ 9; // Outputs '5'
echo "12" ^ "9"; // Outputs the Backspace character (ascii 8)
// ('1' (ascii 49)) ^ ('9' (ascii 57)) = #8
echo "hallo" ^ "hello"; // Outputs the ascii values #0 #4 #0 #0 #0
// 'a' ^ 'e' = #4
?> |
Table 15-3. Bitwise Operators
| Example | Name | Result |
|---|---|---|
| $a & $b | And | Bits that are set in both $a and $b are set. |
| $a | $b | Or | Bits that are set in either $a or $b are set. |
| $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. |
| $a << $b | Shift left | Shift the bits of $a $b steps to the left (each step means "multiply by two") |
| $a >> $b | Shift right | Shift the bits of $a $b steps to the right (each step means "divide by two") |
| Warning |
Don't right shift for more than 32 bits on 32 bits systems. Don't left shift in case it results to number longer than 32 bits. |
Comparison operators, as their name implies, allow you to compare two values. You may also be interested in viewing the type comparison tables, as they show examples of various type related comparisons.
Table 15-4. Comparison Operators
| Example | Name | Result |
|---|---|---|
| $a == $b | Equal | TRUE if $a is equal to $b. |
| $a === $b | Identical | TRUE if $a is equal to $b, and they are of the same type. (introduced in PHP 4) |
| $a != $b | Not equal | TRUE if $a is not equal to $b. |
| $a <> $b | Not equal | TRUE if $a is not equal to $b. |
| $a !== $b | Not identical | TRUE if $a is not equal to $b, or they are not of the same type. (introduced in PHP 4) |
| $a < $b | Less than | TRUE if $a is strictly less than $b. |
| $a > $b | Greater than | TRUE if $a is strictly greater than $b. |
| $a <= $b | Less than or equal to | TRUE if $a is less than or equal to $b. |
| $a >= $b | Greater than or equal to | TRUE if $a is greater than or equal to $b. |
If you compare an integer with a string, the string is converted to a number. If you compare two numerical strings, they are compared as integers. These rules also apply to the switch statement.
<?php
var_dump(0 == "a"); // 0 == 0 -> true
var_dump("1" == "01"); // 1 == 1 -> true
switch ("a") {
case 0:
echo "0";
break;
case "a": // never reached because "a" is already matched with 0
echo "a";
break;
}
?> |
For various types, comparison is done according to the following table (in order).
Table 15-5. Comparison with Various Types
| Type of Operand 1 | Type of Operand 2 | Result |
|---|---|---|
| null or string | string | Convert NULL to "", numerical or lexical comparison |
| bool or null | anything | Convert to bool, FALSE < TRUE |
| object | object | Built-in classes can define its own comparison, different classes are uncomparable, same class - compare properties the same way as arrays (PHP 4), PHP 5 has its own explanation |
| string, resource or number | string, resource or number | Translate strings and resources to numbers, usual math |
| array | array | Array with fewer members is smaller, if key from operand 1 is not found in operand 2 then arrays are uncomparable, otherwise - compare value by value (see following example) |
| array | anything | array is always greater |
| object | anything | object is always greater |
Example 15-2. Transcription of standard array comparison
|
See also strcasecmp(), strcmp(), Array operators, and the manual section on Types.
Another conditional operator is the "?:" (or ternary) operator.
Note: Please note that the ternary operator is a statement, and that it doesn't evaluate to a variable, but to the result of a statement. This is important to know if you want to return a variable by reference. The statement return $var == 42 ? $a : $b; in a return-by-reference function will therefore not work and a warning is issued in later PHP versions.
PHP supports one error control operator: the at sign (@). When prepended to an expression in PHP, any error messages that might be generated by that expression will be ignored.
If the track_errors feature is enabled, any error message generated by the expression will be saved in the variable $php_errormsg. This variable will be overwritten on each error, so check early if you want to use it.
<?php
/* Intentional file error */
$my_file = @file ('non_existent_file') or
die ("Failed opening file: error was '$php_errormsg'");
// this works for any expression, not just functions:
$value = @$cache[$key];
// will not issue a notice if the index $key doesn't exist.
?> |
Note: The @-operator works only on expressions. A simple rule of thumb is: if you can take the value of something, you can prepend the @ operator to it. For instance, you can prepend it to variables, function and include() calls, constants, and so forth. You cannot prepend it to function or class definitions, or conditional structures such as if and foreach, and so forth.
See also error_reporting() and the manual section for Error Handling and Logging functions.
| Warning |
Currently the "@" error-control operator prefix will even disable error reporting for critical errors that will terminate script execution. Among other things, this means that if you use "@" to suppress errors from a certain function and either it isn't available or has been mistyped, the script will die right there with no indication as to why. |
PHP supports one execution operator: backticks (``). Note that these are not single-quotes! PHP will attempt to execute the contents of the backticks as a shell command; the output will be returned (i.e., it won't simply be dumped to output; it can be assigned to a variable). Use of the backtick operator is identical to shell_exec().
Note: The backtick operator is disabled when safe mode is enabled or shell_exec() is disabled.
See also the manual section on Program Execution functions, popen() proc_open(), and Using PHP from the commandline.
PHP supports C-style pre- and post-increment and decrement operators.
Note: The increment/decrement operators do not affect boolean values. Decrementing NULL values has no effect too, but incrementing them results in 1.
Table 15-6. Increment/decrement Operators
| Example | Name | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| ++$a | Pre-increment | Increments $a by one, then returns $a. |
| $a++ | Post-increment | Returns $a, then increments $a by one. |
| --$a | Pre-decrement | Decrements $a by one, then returns $a. |
| $a-- | Post-decrement | Returns $a, then decrements $a by one. |
Here's a simple example script:
<?php echo "<h3>Postincrement</h3>"; $a = 5; echo "Should be 5: " . $a++ . "<br />\n"; echo "Should be 6: " . $a . "<br />\n"; echo "<h3>Preincrement</h3>"; $a = 5; echo "Should be 6: " . ++$a . "<br />\n"; echo "Should be 6: " . $a . "<br />\n"; echo "<h3>Postdecrement</h3>"; $a = 5; echo "Should be 5: " . $a-- . "<br />\n"; echo "Should be 4: " . $a . "<br />\n"; echo "<h3>Predecrement</h3>"; $a = 5; echo "Should be 4: " . --$a . "<br />\n"; echo "Should be 4: " . $a . "<br />\n"; ?> |
PHP follows Perl's convention when dealing with arithmetic operations on character variables and not C's. For example, in Perl 'Z'+1 turns into 'AA', while in C 'Z'+1 turns into '[' ( ord('Z') == 90, ord('[') == 91 ). Note that character variables can be incremented but not decremented and even so only plain ASCII characters (a-z and A-Z) are supported.
Incrementing or decrementing booleans has no effect.
Table 15-7. Logical Operators
| Example | Name | Result |
|---|---|---|
| $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 reason for the two different variations of "and" and "or" operators is that they operate at different precedences. (See Operator Precedence.)
There are two string operators. The first is the concatenation operator ('.'), which returns the concatenation of its right and left arguments. The second is the concatenating assignment operator ('.='), which appends the argument on the right side to the argument on the left side. Please read Assignment Operators for more information.
<?php $a = "Hello "; $b = $a . "World!"; // now $b contains "Hello World!" $a = "Hello "; $a .= "World!"; // now $a contains "Hello World!" ?> |
See also the manual sections on the String type and String functions.
Table 15-8. Array Operators
| Example | Name | Result |
|---|---|---|
| $a + $b | Union | Union of $a and $b. |
| $a == $b | Equality | TRUE if $a and $b have the same key/value pairs. |
| $a === $b | Identity | TRUE if $a and $b have the same key/value pairs in the same order and of the same types. |
| $a != $b | Inequality | TRUE if $a is not equal to $b. |
| $a <> $b | Inequality | TRUE if $a is not equal to $b. |
| $a !== $b | Non-identity | TRUE if $a is not identical to $b. |
The + operator appends the right handed array to the left handed, whereas duplicated keys are NOT overwritten.
<?php
$a = array("a" => "apple", "b" => "banana");
$b = array("a" => "pear", "b" => "strawberry", "c" => "cherry");
$c = $a + $b; // Union of $a and $b
echo "Union of \$a and \$b: \n";
var_dump($c);
$c = $b + $a; // Union of $b and $a
echo "Union of \$b and \$a: \n";
var_dump($c);
?> |
Union of $a and $b:
array(3) {
["a"]=>
string(5) "apple"
["b"]=>
string(6) "banana"
["c"]=>
string(6) "cherry"
}
Union of $b and $a:
array(3) {
["a"]=>
string(4) "pear"
["b"]=>
string(10) "strawberry"
["c"]=>
string(6) "cherry"
} |
Elements of arrays are equal for the comparison if they have the same key and value.
See also the manual sections on the Array type and Array functions.
PHP has a single type operator: instanceof is used to determine whether a given object, his parents or their implemented interfaces are of a specified object class.
The instanceof operator was introduced in PHP 5. Before this time is_a() was used but is_a() has since been deprecated in favor of instanceof.
<?php
class A { }
class B { }
$thing = new A;
if ($thing instanceof A) {
echo 'A';
}
if ($thing instanceof B) {
echo 'B';
}
?> |
As $thing is an object of type A, but not B, only the block dependent on the A type will be executed:
A |
See also get_class() and is_a().
Any PHP script is built out of a series of statements. A statement can be an assignment, a function call, a loop, a conditional statement or even a statement that does nothing (an empty statement). Statements usually end with a semicolon. In addition, statements can be grouped into a statement-group by encapsulating a group of statements with curly braces. A statement-group is a statement by itself as well. The various statement types are described in this chapter.
The if construct is one of the most important features of many languages, PHP included. It allows for conditional execution of code fragments. PHP features an if structure that is similar to that of C:
As described in the section about expressions, expression is evaluated to its Boolean value. If expression evaluates to TRUE, PHP will execute statement, and if it evaluates to FALSE - it'll ignore it. More information about what values evaluate to FALSE can be found in the 'Converting to boolean' section.
The following example would display a is bigger than b if $a is bigger than $b:
Often you'd want to have more than one statement to be executed conditionally. Of course, there's no need to wrap each statement with an if clause. Instead, you can group several statements into a statement group. For example, this code would display a is bigger than b if $a is bigger than $b, and would then assign the value of $a into $b:
If statements can be nested indefinitely within other if statements, which provides you with complete flexibility for conditional execution of the various parts of your program.
Often you'd want to execute a statement if a certain condition is met, and a different statement if the condition is not met. This is what else is for. else extends an if statement to execute a statement in case the expression in the if statement evaluates to FALSE. For example, the following code would display a is bigger than b if $a is bigger than $b, and a is NOT bigger than b otherwise:
The else statement is only executed if the if expression evaluated to FALSE, and if there were any elseif expressions - only if they evaluated to FALSE as well (see elseif).elseif, as its name suggests, is a combination of if and else. Like else, it extends an if statement to execute a different statement in case the original if expression evaluates to FALSE. However, unlike else, it will execute that alternative expression only if the elseif conditional expression evaluates to TRUE. For example, the following code would display a is bigger than b, a equal to b or a is smaller than b:
<?php
if ($a > $b) {
echo "a is bigger than b";
} elseif ($a == $b) {
echo "a is equal to b";
} else {
echo "a is smaller than b";
}
?> |
There may be several elseifs within the same if statement. The first elseif expression (if any) that evaluates to TRUE would be executed. In PHP, you can also write 'else if' (in two words) and the behavior would be identical to the one of 'elseif' (in a single word). The syntactic meaning is slightly different (if you're familiar with C, this is the same behavior) but the bottom line is that both would result in exactly the same behavior.
The elseif statement is only executed if the preceding if expression and any preceding elseif expressions evaluated to FALSE, and the current elseif expression evaluated to TRUE.
PHP offers an alternative syntax for some of its control structures; namely, if, while, for, foreach, and switch. In each case, the basic form of the alternate syntax is to change the opening brace to a colon (:) and the closing brace to endif;, endwhile;, endfor;, endforeach;, or endswitch;, respectively.
In the above example, the HTML block "A is equal to 5" is nested within an if statement written in the alternative syntax. The HTML block would be displayed only if $a is equal to 5.
The alternative syntax applies to else and elseif as well. The following is an if structure with elseif and else in the alternative format:
while loops are the simplest type of loop in PHP. They behave just like their C counterparts. The basic form of a while statement is:
The meaning of a while statement is simple. It tells PHP to execute the nested statement(s) repeatedly, as long as the while expression evaluates to TRUE. The value of the expression is checked each time at the beginning of the loop, so even if this value changes during the execution of the nested statement(s), execution will not stop until the end of the iteration (each time PHP runs the statements in the loop is one iteration). Sometimes, if the while expression evaluates to FALSE from the very beginning, the nested statement(s) won't even be run once.
Like with the if statement, you can group multiple statements within the same while loop by surrounding a group of statements with curly braces, or by using the alternate syntax:
The following examples are identical, and both print numbers from 1 to 10:
do-while loops are very similar to while loops, except the truth expression is checked at the end of each iteration instead of in the beginning. The main difference from regular while loops is that the first iteration of a do-while loop is guaranteed to run (the truth expression is only checked at the end of the iteration), whereas it's may not necessarily run with a regular while loop (the truth expression is checked at the beginning of each iteration, if it evaluates to FALSE right from the beginning, the loop execution would end immediately).
There is just one syntax for do-while loops:
The above loop would run one time exactly, since after the first iteration, when truth expression is checked, it evaluates to FALSE ($i is not bigger than 0) and the loop execution ends.
Advanced C users may be familiar with a different usage of the do-while loop, to allow stopping execution in the middle of code blocks, by encapsulating them with do-while (0), and using the break statement. The following code fragment demonstrates this:
<?php
do {
if ($i < 5) {
echo "i is not big enough";
break;
}
$i *= $factor;
if ($i < $minimum_limit) {
break;
}
echo "i is ok";
/* process i */
} while (0);
?> |
Don't worry if you don't understand this right away or at all. You can code scripts and even powerful scripts without using this 'feature'.
for loops are the most complex loops in PHP. They behave like their C counterparts. The syntax of a for loop is:
The first expression (expr1) is evaluated (executed) once unconditionally at the beginning of the loop.
In the beginning of each iteration, expr2 is evaluated. If it evaluates to TRUE, the loop continues and the nested statement(s) are executed. If it evaluates to FALSE, the execution of the loop ends.
At the end of each iteration, expr3 is evaluated (executed).
Each of the expressions can be empty or contain multiple expressions separated by commas. Comma separated expressions in expr2 are treated similarly to being separated by the || operator but has a lower precedence than ||. expr2 being empty means the loop should be run indefinitely (PHP implicitly considers it as TRUE, like C). This may not be as useless as you might think, since often you'd want to end the loop using a conditional break statement instead of using the for truth expression.
Consider the following examples. All of them display numbers from 1 to 10:
<?php
/* example 1 */
for ($i = 1; $i <= 10; $i++) {
echo $i;
}
/* example 2 */
for ($i = 1; ; $i++) {
if ($i > 10) {
break;
}
echo $i;
}
/* example 3 */
$i = 1;
for (; ; ) {
if ($i > 10) {
break;
}
echo $i;
$i++;
}
/* example 4 */
for ($i = 1, $j = 0; $i <= 10; $j += $i, print $i, $i++);
?> |
Of course, the first example appears to be the nicest one (or perhaps the fourth), but you may find that being able to use empty expressions in for loops comes in handy in many occasions.
PHP also supports the alternate "colon syntax" for for loops.
PHP 4 introduced a foreach construct, much like Perl and some other languages. This simply gives an easy way to iterate over arrays. foreach works only on arrays, and will issue an error when you try to use it on a variable with a different data type or an uninitialized variable. There are two syntaxes; the second is a minor but useful extension of the first:
foreach (array_expression as $value)
statement
foreach (array_expression as $key => $value)
statement |
The first form loops over the array given by array_expression. On each loop, the value of the current element is assigned to $value and the internal array pointer is advanced by one (so on the next loop, you'll be looking at the next element).
The second form does the same thing, except that the current element's key will be assigned to the variable $key on each loop.
As of PHP 5, it is possible to iterate objects too.
Note: When foreach first starts executing, the internal array pointer is automatically reset to the first element of the array. This means that you do not need to call reset() before a foreach loop.
Note: Unless the array is referenced, foreach operates on a copy of the specified array and not the array itself. Therefore, the array pointer is not modified as with the each() construct, and changes to the array element returned are not reflected in the original array. However, the internal pointer of the original array is advanced with the processing of the array. Assuming the foreach loop runs to completion, the array's internal pointer will be at the end of the array.
As of PHP 5, you can easily modify array's elements by preceding $value with &. This will assign reference instead of copying the value.
This is possible only if iterated array can be referenced (i.e. is variable).
Note: foreach does not support the ability to suppress error messages using '@'.
You may have noticed that the following are functionally identical:
<?php
$arr = array("one", "two", "three");
reset($arr);
while (list(, $value) = each($arr)) {
echo "Value: $value<br />\n";
}
foreach ($arr as $value) {
echo "Value: $value<br />\n";
}
?> |
<?php
$arr = array("one", "two", "three");
reset($arr);
while (list($key, $value) = each($arr)) {
echo "Key: $key; Value: $value<br />\n";
}
foreach ($arr as $key => $value) {
echo "Key: $key; Value: $value<br />\n";
}
?> |
Some more examples to demonstrate usages:
<?php
/* foreach example 1: value only */
$a = array(1, 2, 3, 17);
foreach ($a as $v) {
echo "Current value of \$a: $v.\n";
}
/* foreach example 2: value (with key printed for illustration) */
$a = array(1, 2, 3, 17);
$i = 0; /* for illustrative purposes only */
foreach ($a as $v) {
echo "\$a[$i] => $v.\n";
$i++;
}
/* foreach example 3: key and value */
$a = array(
"one" => 1,
"two" => 2,
"three" => 3,
"seventeen" => 17
);
foreach ($a as $k => $v) {
echo "\$a[$k] => $v.\n";
}
/* foreach example 4: multi-dimensional arrays */
$a = array();
$a[0][0] = "a";
$a[0][1] = "b";
$a[1][0] = "y";
$a[1][1] = "z";
foreach ($a as $v1) {
foreach ($v1 as $v2) {
echo "$v2\n";
}
}
/* foreach example 5: dynamic arrays */
foreach (array(1, 2, 3, 4, 5) as $v) {
echo "$v\n";
}
?> |
break ends execution of the current for, foreach, while, do-while or switch structure.
break accepts an optional numeric argument which tells it how many nested enclosing structures are to be broken out of.
<?php
$arr = array('one', 'two', 'three', 'four', 'stop', 'five');
while (list(, $val) = each($arr)) {
if ($val == 'stop') {
break; /* You could also write 'break 1;' here. */
}
echo "$val<br />\n";
}
/* Using the optional argument. */
$i = 0;
while (++$i) {
switch ($i) {
case 5:
echo "At 5<br />\n";
break 1; /* Exit only the switch. */
case 10:
echo "At 10; quitting<br />\n";
break 2; /* Exit the switch and the while. */
default:
break;
}
}
?> |
continue is used within looping structures to skip the rest of the current loop iteration and continue execution at the condition evaluation and then the beginning of the next iteration.
Note: Note that in PHP the switch statement is considered a looping structure for the purposes of continue.
continue accepts an optional numeric argument which tells it how many levels of enclosing loops it should skip to the end of.
<?php
while (list($key, $value) = each($arr)) {
if (!($key % 2)) { // skip odd members
continue;
}
do_something_odd($value);
}
$i = 0;
while ($i++ < 5) {
echo "Outer<br />\n";
while (1) {
echo " Middle<br />\n";
while (1) {
echo " Inner<br />\n";
continue 3;
}
echo "This never gets output.<br />\n";
}
echo "Neither does this.<br />\n";
}
?> |
Omitting the semicolon after continue can lead to confusion. Here's an example of what you shouldn't do.
<?php
for ($i = 0; $i < 5; ++$i) {
if ($i == 2)
continue
print "$i\n";
}
?> |
One can expect the result to be :
0 1 3 4 |
but this script will output :
2 |
because the return value of the print() call is int(1), and it will look like the optional numeric argument mentioned above.
The switch statement is similar to a series of IF statements on the same expression. In many occasions, you may want to compare the same variable (or expression) with many different values, and execute a different piece of code depending on which value it equals to. This is exactly what the switch statement is for.
Note: Note that unlike some other languages, the continue statement applies to switch and acts similar to break. If you have a switch inside a loop and wish to continue to the next iteration of the outer loop, use continue 2.
The following two examples are two different ways to write the same thing, one using a series of if and elseif statements, and the other using the switch statement:
It is important to understand how the switch statement is executed in order to avoid mistakes. The switch statement executes line by line (actually, statement by statement). In the beginning, no code is executed. Only when a case statement is found with a value that matches the value of the switch expression does PHP begin to execute the statements. PHP continues to execute the statements until the end of the switch block, or the first time it sees a break statement. If you don't write a break statement at the end of a case's statement list, PHP will go on executing the statements of the following case. For example:
<?php
switch ($i) {
case 0:
echo "i equals 0";
case 1:
echo "i equals 1";
case 2:
echo "i equals 2";
}
?> |
Here, if $i is equal to 0, PHP would execute all of the echo statements! If $i is equal to 1, PHP would execute the last two echo statements. You would get the expected behavior ('i equals 2' would be displayed) only if $i is equal to 2. Thus, it is important not to forget break statements (even though you may want to avoid supplying them on purpose under certain circumstances).
In a switch statement, the condition is evaluated only once and the result is compared to each case statement. In an elseif statement, the condition is evaluated again. If your condition is more complicated than a simple compare and/or is in a tight loop, a switch may be faster.
The statement list for a case can also be empty, which simply passes control into the statement list for the next case.
<?php
switch ($i) {
case 0:
case 1:
case 2:
echo "i is less than 3 but not negative";
break;
case 3:
echo "i is 3";
}
?> |
A special case is the default case. This case matches anything that wasn't matched by the other cases, and should be the last case statement. For example:
<?php
switch ($i) {
case 0:
echo "i equals 0";
break;
case 1:
echo "i equals 1";
break;
case 2:
echo "i equals 2";
break;
default:
echo "i is not equal to 0, 1 or 2";
}
?> |
The case expression may be any expression that evaluates to a simple type, that is, integer or floating-point numbers and strings. Arrays or objects cannot be used here unless they are dereferenced to a simple type.
The alternative syntax for control structures is supported with switches. For more information, see Alternative syntax for control structures .
The declare construct is used to set execution directives for a block of code. The syntax of declare is similar to the syntax of other flow control constructs:
The directive section allows the behavior of the declare block to be set. Currently only one directive is recognized: the ticks directive. (See below for more information on the ticks directive)
The statement part of the declare block will be executed -- how it is executed and what side effects occur during execution may depend on the directive set in the directive block.
The declare construct can also be used in the global scope, affecting all code following it.
<?php
// these are the same:
// you can use this:
declare(ticks=1) {
// entire script here
}
// or you can use this:
declare(ticks=1);
// entire script here
?> |
A tick is an event that occurs for every N low-level statements executed by the parser within the declare block. The value for N is specified using ticks=N within the declare blocks's directive section.
The event(s) that occur on each tick are specified using the register_tick_function(). See the example below for more details. Note that more than one event can occur for each tick.
Example 16-3. Profile a section of PHP code
|
Ticks are well suited for debugging, implementing simple multitasking, background I/O and many other tasks.
See also register_tick_function() and unregister_tick_function().
If called from within a function, the return() statement immediately ends execution of the current function, and returns its argument as the value of the function call. return() will also end the execution of an eval() statement or script file.
If called from the global scope, then execution of the current script file is ended. If the current script file was include()ed or require()ed, then control is passed back to the calling file. Furthermore, if the current script file was include()ed, then the value given to return() will be returned as the value of the include() call. If return() is called from within the main script file, then script execution ends. If the current script file was named by the auto_prepend_file or auto_append_file configuration options in php.ini, then that script file's execution is ended.
For more information, see Returning values.
Note: Note that since return() is a language construct and not a function, the parentheses surrounding its arguments are only required if the argument contains an expression. It is common to leave them out while returning a variable, and you actually should as PHP has less work to do in this case.
Note: You should never use parentheses around your return variable when returning by reference, as this will not work. You can only return variables by reference, not the result of a statement. If you use return ($a); then you're not returning a variable, but the result of the expression ($a) (which is, of course, the value of $a).
The require() statement includes and evaluates the specific file.
require() includes and evaluates a specific file. Detailed information on how this inclusion works is described in the documentation for include().
require() and include() are identical in every way except how they handle failure. include() produces a Warning while require() results in a Fatal Error. In other words, don't hesitate to use require() if you want a missing file to halt processing of the page. include() does not behave this way, the script will continue regardless. Be sure to have an appropriate include_path setting as well.
Example 16-4. Basic require() examples
|
See the include() documentation for more examples.
Note: Prior to PHP 4.0.2, the following applies: require() will always attempt to read the target file, even if the line it's on never executes. The conditional statement won't affect require(). However, if the line on which the require() occurs is not executed, neither will any of the code in the target file be executed. Similarly, looping structures do not affect the behaviour of require(). Although the code contained in the target file is still subject to the loop, the require() itself happens only once.
Note: Because this is a language construct and not a function, it cannot be called using variable functions
| Warning |
Windows versions of PHP prior to PHP 4.3.0 do not support accessing remote files via this function, even if allow_url_fopen is enabled. |
See also include(), require_once(), include_once(), get_included_files(), eval(), file(), readfile(), virtual() and include_path.
The include() statement includes and evaluates the specified file.
The documentation below also applies to require(). The two constructs are identical in every way except how they handle failure. include() produces a Warning while require() results in a Fatal Error. In other words, use require() if you want a missing file to halt processing of the page. include() does not behave this way, the script will continue regardless. Be sure to have an appropriate include_path setting as well. Be warned that parse error in included file doesn't cause processing halting in PHP versions prior to PHP 4.3.5. Since this version, it does.
Files for including are first looked in include_path relative to the current working directory and then in include_path relative to the directory of current script. E.g. if your include_path is ., current working directory is /www/, you included include/a.php and there is include "b.php" in that file, b.php is first looked in /www/ and then in /www/include/. If filename begins with ./ or ../, it is looked only in include_path relative to the current working directory.
When a file is included, the code it contains inherits the variable scope of the line on which the include occurs. Any variables available at that line in the calling file will be available within the called file, from that point forward. However, all functions and classes defined in the included file have the global scope.
Example 16-5. Basic include() example
|
If the include occurs inside a function within the calling file, then all of the code contained in the called file will behave as though it had been defined inside that function. So, it will follow the variable scope of that function.
Example 16-6. Including within functions
|
When a file is included, parsing drops out of PHP mode and into HTML mode at the beginning of the target file, and resumes again at the end. For this reason, any code inside the target file which should be executed as PHP code must be enclosed within valid PHP start and end tags.
If "URL fopen wrappers" are enabled in PHP (which they are in the default configuration), you can specify the file to be included using a URL (via HTTP or other supported wrapper - see Appendix M for a list of protocols) instead of a local pathname. If the target server interprets the target file as PHP code, variables may be passed to the included file using a URL request string as used with HTTP GET. This is not strictly speaking the same thing as including the file and having it inherit the parent file's variable scope; the script is actually being run on the remote server and the result is then being included into the local script.
| Warning |
Windows versions of PHP prior to PHP 4.3.0 do not support accessing remote files via this function, even if allow_url_fopen is enabled. |
Example 16-7. include() through HTTP
|
| Security warning |
Remote file may be processed at the remote server (depending on the file extension and the fact if the remote server runs PHP or not) but it still has to produce a valid PHP script because it will be processed at the local server. If the file from the remote server should be processed there and outputted only, readfile() is much better function to use. Otherwise, special care should be taken to secure the remote script to produce a valid and desired code. |
See also Remote files, fopen() and file() for related information.
Because include() and require() are special language constructs, you must enclose them within a statement block if it's inside a conditional block.
Handling Returns: It is possible to execute a return() statement inside an included file in order to terminate processing in that file and return to the script which called it. Also, it's possible to return values from included files. You can take the value of the include call as you would a normal function. This is not, however, possible when including remote files unless the output of the remote file has valid PHP start and end tags (as with any local file). You can declare the needed variables within those tags and they will be introduced at whichever point the file was included.
Because include() is a special language construct, parentheses are not needed around its argument. Take care when comparing return value.
Note: In PHP 3, the return may not appear inside a block unless it's a function block, in which case the return() applies to that function and not the whole file.
$bar is the value 1 because the include was successful. Notice the difference between the above examples. The first uses return() within the included file while the other does not. If the file can't be included, FALSE is returned and E_WARNING is issued.
If there are functions defined in the included file, they can be used in the main file independent if they are before return() or after. If the file is included twice, PHP 5 issues fatal error because functions were already declared, while PHP 4 doesn't complain about functions defined after return(). It is recommended to use include_once() instead of checking if the file was already included and conditionally return inside the included file.
Another way to "include" a PHP file into a variable is to capture the output by using the Output Control Functions with include(). For example:
Example 16-11. Using output buffering to include a PHP file into a string
|
In order to automatically include files within scripts, see also the auto_prepend_file and auto_append_file configuration options in php.ini.
Note: Because this is a language construct and not a function, it cannot be called using variable functions
See also require(), require_once(), include_once(), get_included_files(), readfile(), virtual(), and include_path.
The require_once() statement includes and evaluates the specified file during the execution of the script. This is a behavior similar to the require() statement, with the only difference being that if the code from a file has already been included, it will not be included again. See the documentation for require() for more information on how this statement works.
require_once() should be used in cases where the same file might be included and evaluated more than once during a particular execution of a script, and you want to be sure that it is included exactly once to avoid problems with function redefinitions, variable value reassignments, etc.
For examples on using require_once() and include_once(), look at the PEAR code included in the latest PHP source code distributions.
Return values are the same as with include(). If the file was already included, this function returns TRUE
Note: require_once() was added in PHP 4.0.1pl2
Note: Be aware, that the behaviour of require_once() and include_once() may not be what you expect on a non case sensitive operating system (such as Windows).
This behaviour changed in PHP 5 - the path is normalized first so that C:\PROGRA~1\A.php is realized the same as C:\Program Files\a.php and the file is required just once.
Example 16-12. require_once() is case insensitive on Windows
<?php require_once("a.php"); // this will include a.php require_once("A.php"); // this will include a.php again on Windows! (PHP 4 only) ?>
| Warning |
Windows versions of PHP prior to PHP 4.3.0 do not support accessing remote files via this function, even if allow_url_fopen is enabled. |
See also require(), include(), include_once(), get_required_files(), get_included_files(), readfile(), and virtual().
The include_once() statement includes and evaluates the specified file during the execution of the script. This is a behavior similar to the include() statement, with the only difference being that if the code from a file has already been included, it will not be included again. As the name suggests, it will be included just once.
include_once() should be used in cases where the same file might be included and evaluated more than once during a particular execution of a script, and you want to be sure that it is included exactly once to avoid problems with function redefinitions, variable value reassignments, etc.
For more examples on using require_once() and include_once(), look at the PEAR code included in the latest PHP source code distributions.
Return values are the same as with include(). If the file was already included, this function returns TRUE
Note: include_once() was added in PHP 4.0.1pl2
Note: Be aware, that the behaviour of include_once() and require_once() may not be what you expect on a non case sensitive operating system (such as Windows).
This behaviour changed in PHP 5 - the path is normalized first so that C:\PROGRA~1\A.php is realized the same as C:\Program Files\a.php and the file is included just once.
Example 16-13. include_once() is case insensitive on Windows
<?php include_once("a.php"); // this will include a.php include_once("A.php"); // this will include a.php again on Windows! (PHP 4 only) ?>
| Warning |
Windows versions of PHP prior to PHP 4.3.0 do not support accessing remote files via this function, even if allow_url_fopen is enabled. |
See also include(), require(), require_once(), get_required_files(), get_included_files()<