Creating Your First PHP File and Embedding PHP in HTML

Alright then, gang! Now that we understand how PHP files are run on the server and how we serve up these pages to the browser using our local development server, let’s take the next step.

Organizing Our Course Files

First things first, let’s keep things tidy. Inside the htdocs folder, where our files are served from, I’ve created a new folder called torts_tutorials. This is where we’ll store all our course files for this project or series.

Creating Our First PHP File

Now, let’s dive into coding! I’ve opened up the torts_tutorials folder in Sublime Text, and I’m going to create our first PHP file. Right-click, select “New File,” and save it as index.php inside the torts_tutorials folder.

To write PHP code inside this file, we need to encapsulate it within PHP tags. You can use <?php to open PHP tags and ?> to close them. Sublime Text has a handy shortcut where you can just type php and then hit tab to automatically generate the PHP tags.

A Simple PHP Statement

Let’s start with a simple PHP statement. We’ll use the echo statement to output a string. Remember, every PHP statement must end with a semicolon ;. For example, echo "Hello ninjas!";.

Running Our PHP Code

Now, let’s see our PHP code in action! Open your browser and navigate to localhost/torts_tutorials. Since we named our file index.php, we don’t need to specify it in the URL—our local server will automatically look for an index.php file.

Voila! You should see our message, “Hello ninjas!”, displayed in your browser. But what’s happening behind the scenes?

Understanding PHP Execution

When we request the index.php page, the server finds the file and executes the PHP code inside it. Our PHP code outputs the string “Hello ninjas!”.

But here’s the kicker: what’s sent back to the browser isn’t actually PHP code—it’s an HTML page. The browser doesn’t understand PHP; it understands HTML. So, the PHP code is executed on the server, and the resulting HTML is sent to the browser for display.

Embedding PHP in HTML

Now, let’s take it up a notch. We can embed PHP directly into our HTML code. For instance, we can dynamically generate HTML content using PHP.

In our index.php file, let’s create an HTML structure. We’ll add a title and an <h1> heading, where we’ll dynamically output our “Hello ninjas!” message using PHP’s echo statement.

Variables and Constants

But wait, there’s more to PHP than just echoing strings! In the next video, we’ll dive into two fundamental concepts: variables and constants. These allow us to store and manipulate data dynamically, taking our PHP skills to the next level.

Understanding Variables

Variables in PHP allow us to store and manipulate data. Think of them as containers for information that can change over time.

To create a variable in PHP, we simply use the $ symbol followed by the variable name, like so: $name. We can then assign a value to the variable using the assignment operator =. For example: $name = "John";.

Variables can store various types of data, including strings (text), integers (whole numbers), floats (decimal numbers), booleans (true/false values), arrays (lists of values), and objects (instances of classes).

Let’s see an example:

$name = “John”;
$age = 30;
$height = 6.2;

$is_student = true;

Using Variables in HTML