Confused..... .php / .html
 

What is PHP and why would I want to use it?

The reason I ask is that the holding page for my new website has a .php extension but appears to have been written in HTML (or at least there is HTML in the source code when viewed in Firefox).

Anybody able to clear this up for me / tell me when I should be using one instead of the other / why?

Thanks.

Re: Confused..... .php / .html
 

PHP is a programming (script) language.

Re: Confused..... .php / .html
 

More here:
http://uk.php.net/manual/en/introduction.php

Re: Confused..... .php / .html
 

Ok, thanks for that guys.

I can't see any PHP in the source code though, is there a chance that it's somewhere else?

The only thing I can see is a bit of JavaScript that doesn't actually seem to do anything.

Re: Confused..... .php / .html
 

It lets you do funky stuff on websites, for example, this forum! It's quite easy to use as well, and there are plenty of tutorials and books out there, so if you're interested in what it can do, those might also help you get a good idea...

:)

Re: Confused..... .php / .html
 

source code of what ?

Re: Confused..... .php / .html
 

You don't get to see the php code itself, that is hidden away on the server, which works everything out and then sends the html to you when you view it.. if that makes sense, lol!

Re: Confused..... .php / .html
 

There's nothing in the HTML for the page that looks anything like a call to any other resource though. Is it possible that the HTML itself is being generated by the .php page and I am seeing the result of that dynamic generation rather than actually seeing the coding of the .php page?

Re: Confused..... .php / .html
 

That's what server-side code does. :o

Re: Confused..... .php / .html
 

indeed, you have, as they say, hit the proverbial nail on the head. :)

Re: Confused..... .php / .html
 

Cool, downloaded it and opened using notepad and there's a whole load of code that I couldn't see before. Thanks for your help guys.

Re: Confused..... .php / .html
 

You can (if you wanted) just save a normal html document with no server side code in with a .php suffix.

Re: Confused..... .php / .html
 

One thing I should add is you can spot PHP code in two ways:

1

2.

Re: Confused..... .php / .html
 

There's a nifty bit of Apache (web server), which is bolted on, that goes "Cooooo - someone requesting a PHP page" and nips in, grabs the page, has a read, converts all the programming code to HTML, and hands the HTML to Apache to give to the client. The nipping in bit is where much tweaking goes on to improve the speed of the nipping. It's caused a few problems with this site, I believe? The bolted on bit is called a module, and the conversion process from PHP to HTML code is interpretation - which makes PHP an interpreted language.

The page does not have to have a .php extension - could have .moo Just depends on how Apache is configured.

Re: Confused..... .php / .html
 

Or .html or even dot nothing ;)

Re: Confused..... .php / .html
 

Indeed :)

By not using an obvious extension, you deny any potential hacker valuable information about your server and the software it runs.