Over the course of this book, it will be my job to guide you as you take your first steps beyond the HTML world of client-side site design. Together, we’ll explore what it takes to develop the kind of large, content-driven sites that are so successful today, but which can be a real headache to maintain if they aren’t built right. Before we get started, you need to gather together the tools you’ll need for the job. In this first chapter, I’ll guide you as you download and set up the two software packages you’ll need: PHP and MySQL.

PHP is a server-side scripting language. You can think of it as a “plug-in” for your Web server that will allow it to do more than just send plain Web pages when browsers request them. With PHP installed, your Web server will be able to read a new kind of file (called a PHP script) that can do things like retrieve up-to-the-minute information from a database and insert it into a Web page before sending it to the browser that requested it. PHP is completely free to download and use.

To retrieve information from a database, you first need to have a database. That’s where MySQL comes in. MySQL is a relational database management system, or RDBMS. We’ll get into the exact role it plays and how it works later, but basically it’s a software package that is very good at the organization and management of large amounts of information. MySQL also makes that information really easy to access with server-side scripting languages like PHP. MySQL is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL), and is thus free for most uses on all of the platforms it supports. This includes most Unix-based platforms, like Linux and even Mac OS X, as well as Windows.

Download pdf Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP and MySQL, 3rd Edition (First 4 Chapters)