Hi didmac.
I don't know what PHP actually stands for, but for daily use PHP is basically programming for websites: where standard HTML web pages are static: you get the same page over and over again, PHP allows you to 'detect' input parameters and modify the output web page accordingly.
For instance: you want the viewer of your website to click a picture thumbnail to see a different page with a big version of your picture.
in standard HTML you would do something like this:
file imagethumbnails.html:
....
<a href="imagebig_pictureGranny.html"><image src="thumbnailpic_Granny.jpg"><h5>Click me to see a bigger image</h5></a><br>
<a href="imagebig_pictureUncleJohn.html"><image src="thumbnailpic_UncleJohn.jpg"><h5>Click me to see a bigger image</h5></a><br>
<a href="imagebig_GrannyAndJohn.html"><image src="thumbnailpic_GrannyAndJohn.jpg"><h5>Click me to see a bigger image</h5></a><br>
....
In this example you call a different page for each of the 3 images to show, where the only thing different between the pages is the picture they display
Using a PHP page for the big images, you can use the same page over and over:
file imagethumbnails_with_php.html
....
<a href="imagebig.php?image=Granny.jpg"><image src="thumbnailpic_Granny.jpg"><h5>Click me to see a bigger image</h5></a><br>
<a href="imagebig.php?image=UncleJohn.jpg"><image src="thumbnailpic_UncleJohn.jpg"><h5>Click me to see a bigger image</h5></a><br>
<a href="imagebig.php?image=GrannyAndJohn.jpg"><image src="thumbnailpic_GrannyAndJohn.jpg"><h5>Click me to see a bigger image</h5></a><br>
....
See how we just have one page: imagebig.php which will display 3 different big images depending on the value of the '?image=' tag. For just 3 iamges, this may not be such big of a deal, but the same PHP file that just replaced 3 html files can be used for all the thumbnails in your site, regardless if there are 3, 4, 30 or even 400.
You can make PHP pages for almost every web page, just think of what parameters you need to make your page unique and then giving them along in the page header. We already seen the picture example but there are myriads of other options:
a href="playmusic.php?song=unchainedmelody.mp3"
a href="selectbooks.php?genre=thriller&author=king"
a href="displaycalendar.php?name=msmith&date=10-24-2010&showmeetings=true&showsalescalls=true&showreviews=false"
Giving parameters along with the command line is only one option: parameters can be specified in several other ways such as through forms:
.......
<!-- Start of FORM -->
<form method="POST" action="showbig.php">
<input name="image" type="radio" value="granny.jpg" checked>Granny blows out the birthday cake<br>
<input name="image" type="radio" value="uncleJohn.jpg" >uncle John<br>
<input name="image" type="radio" value="grannyAndEthel.jpg">Granny and Aunt Ethel<br>
<input name="image" type="radio" value="grannyAndJohn.jpg">Granny and Uncle John<br>
<input type="submit" value ="Show this image">
</form>
<!-- End of FORM -->
...
(Other ways of passing along parameters are through cookies, text files or databases.)
I used PHP for the first time to build a photo album, like the one mentioned above. Currently I use it to build and send e-cards, display puzzle applets and even send e-mails. Yes, the possibilities are may be not endless, but they are out there
yours,
'Niklas