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PHP

PHP (short for “Hypertext Preprocessor”) is a general-purpose open-source scripting language that is used in web development. PHP is a server-side language, meaning that it runs on a web hosting server.

Application Example(s)

PHP is used by around 80% of all websites with known server-side programming. As an example, the entire infrastructure of WordPress is built on PHP, which allows it to fetch data from its databases and output it as static HTML. When Facebook launched, its entire code was written in PHP. It has since developed its own PHP-based scripting language, which it calls HipHop Virtual Machine (HHVM).

Applications, ecommerce platforms, and dynamic and interactive web pages can all be created using PHP. PHP has the ability to encrypt data, send and receive cookies, control user access, collect form data, and more besides.

PHP is an interpreted language, which means you create code statements (lines of code) and the PHP interpreter will load, parse and execute your PHP code whenever a page request is made. This contrasts with other languages where the source code is first compiled and then run, such Java or C#. This is advantageous for web development since it eliminates the need to recompile your source code when making small changes that immediately affect all incoming requests.

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