- PHP Tutorial
- PHP - Home
- PHP - Introduction
- PHP - Installation
- PHP - History
- PHP - Features
- PHP - Syntax
- PHP - Hello World
- PHP - Comments
- PHP - Variables
- PHP - Echo/Print
- PHP - var_dump
- PHP - $ and $$ Variables
- PHP - Constants
- PHP - Magic Constants
- PHP - Data Types
- PHP - Type Casting
- PHP - Type Juggling
- PHP - Strings
- PHP - Boolean
- PHP - Integers
- PHP - Files & I/O
- PHP - Maths Functions
- PHP - Heredoc & Nowdoc
- PHP - Compound Types
- PHP - File Include
- PHP - Date & Time
- PHP - Scalar Type Declarations
- PHP - Return Type Declarations
- PHP Operators
- PHP - Operators
- PHP - Arithmatic Operators
- PHP - Comparison Operators
- PHP - Logical Operators
- PHP - Assignment Operators
- PHP - String Operators
- PHP - Array Operators
- PHP - Conditional Operators
- PHP - Spread Operator
- PHP - Null Coalescing Operator
- PHP - Spaceship Operator
- PHP Control Statements
- PHP - Decision Making
- PHP - If…Else Statement
- PHP - Switch Statement
- PHP - Loop Types
- PHP - For Loop
- PHP - Foreach Loop
- PHP - While Loop
- PHP - Do…While Loop
- PHP - Break Statement
- PHP - Continue Statement
- PHP Arrays
- PHP - Arrays
- PHP - Indexed Array
- PHP - Associative Array
- PHP - Multidimensional Array
- PHP - Array Functions
- PHP - Constant Arrays
- PHP Functions
- PHP - Functions
- PHP - Function Parameters
- PHP - Call by value
- PHP - Call by Reference
- PHP - Default Arguments
- PHP - Named Arguments
- PHP - Variable Arguments
- PHP - Returning Values
- PHP - Passing Functions
- PHP - Recursive Functions
- PHP - Type Hints
- PHP - Variable Scope
- PHP - Strict Typing
- PHP - Anonymous Functions
- PHP - Arrow Functions
- PHP - Variable Functions
- PHP - Local Variables
- PHP - Global Variables
- PHP Superglobals
- PHP - Superglobals
- PHP - $GLOBALS
- PHP - $_SERVER
- PHP - $_REQUEST
- PHP - $_POST
- PHP - $_GET
- PHP - $_FILES
- PHP - $_ENV
- PHP - $_COOKIE
- PHP - $_SESSION
- PHP File Handling
- PHP - File Handling
- PHP - Open File
- PHP - Read File
- PHP - Write File
- PHP - File Existence
- PHP - Download File
- PHP - Copy File
- PHP - Append File
- PHP - Delete File
- PHP - Handle CSV File
- PHP - File Permissions
- PHP - Create Directory
- PHP - Listing Files
- Object Oriented PHP
- PHP - Object Oriented Programming
- PHP - Classes and Objects
- PHP - Constructor and Destructor
- PHP - Access Modifiers
- PHP - Inheritance
- PHP - Class Constants
- PHP - Abstract Classes
- PHP - Interfaces
- PHP - Traits
- PHP - Static Methods
- PHP - Static Properties
- PHP - Namespaces
- PHP - Object Iteration
- PHP - Encapsulation
- PHP - Final Keyword
- PHP - Overloading
- PHP - Cloning Objects
- PHP - Anonymous Classes
- PHP Web Development
- PHP - Web Concepts
- PHP - Form Handling
- PHP - Form Validation
- PHP - Form Email/URL
- PHP - Complete Form
- PHP - File Inclusion
- PHP - GET & POST
- PHP - File Uploading
- PHP - Cookies
- PHP - Sessions
- PHP - Session Options
- PHP - Sending Emails
- PHP - Sanitize Input
- PHP - Post-Redirect-Get (PRG)
- PHP - Flash Messages
- PHP AJAX
- PHP - AJAX Introduction
- PHP - AJAX Search
- PHP - AJAX XML Parser
- PHP - AJAX Auto Complete Search
- PHP - AJAX RSS Feed Example
- PHP XML
- PHP - XML Introduction
- PHP - Simple XML Parser
- PHP - SAX Parser Example
- PHP - DOM Parser Example
- PHP Login Example
- PHP - Login Example
- PHP - Facebook Login
- PHP - Paypal Integration
- PHP - MySQL Login
- PHP Advanced
- PHP - MySQL
- PHP.INI File Configuration
- PHP - Array Destructuring
- PHP - Coding Standard
- PHP - Regular Expression
- PHP - Error Handling
- PHP - Try…Catch
- PHP - Bugs Debugging
- PHP - For C Developers
- PHP - For PERL Developers
- PHP - Frameworks
- PHP - Core PHP vs Frame Works
- PHP - Design Patterns
- PHP - Filters
- PHP - JSON
- PHP - Exceptions
- PHP - Special Types
- PHP - Hashing
- PHP - Encryption
- PHP - is_null() Function
- PHP - System Calls
- PHP - HTTP Authentication
- PHP - Swapping Variables
- PHP - Closure::call()
- PHP - Filtered unserialize()
- PHP - IntlChar
- PHP - CSPRNG
- PHP - Expectations
- PHP - Use Statement
- PHP - Integer Division
- PHP - Deprecated Features
- PHP - Removed Extensions & SAPIs
- PHP - PEAR
- PHP - CSRF
- PHP - FastCGI Process
- PHP - PDO Extension
- PHP - Built-In Functions
- PHP Useful Resources
- PHP - Questions & Answers
- PHP - Quick Guide
- PHP - Useful Resources
- PHP - Discussion
PHP - History
PHP started out as a small open-source project that evolved gradually as more and more people found out how useful it was. Rasmus Lerdorf released the first version of PHP way back in 1994. At that time, PHP stood for Personal Home Page, as he used it to maintain his personal homepage. Later on, he added database support and called it as "Personal Home Page/Forms Interpreter" or PHP/FI, which could be used to build simple, dynamic web applications.
Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans rewrote the parser in 1997 and formed the base of PHP 3. The name of the language was also changed to the recursive acronym PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. They are also the authors of Zend Engine, a compiler and runtime environment for the PHP. Zend Engine powered PHP 4 was released in May 2000.
PHP 5 was released in 2004, which included many new features such as OOP support, the PHP Data Objects (PDO), and numerous performance enhancements.
PHP 7, is a new major PHP version which was developed in 2015. It included new language features, most notable being, the introduction of return type declarations for functions which complement the existing parameter type declarations, and support for the scalar types (integer, float, string, and boolean) in parameter and return type declarations.
New Features in PHP 8
PHP 8 is the latest major version, released in November 2020. Some of the new features and notable changes include:
Just-in-time (JIT) Compilation
PHP 8's JIT compiler provides substantial performance improvements mathematical-type operations than for common web-development use cases. The JIT compiler provides the future potential to move some code from C to PHP.
The "match: Expression
The newly introduced "match" expression is more compact than a switch statement. Because match is an expression, its result can be assigned to a variable or returned from a function.
PHP 8 – Type Changes and Additions
PHP 8 introduced union types, a new static return type, and a new mixed type. PHP 8 also provided Attributes, (similar to "annotations" in other programming languages) that help in adding metadata to PHP classes.
In addition, there have been many changes and additions to the PHP standard library. PHP 8.2.9 is the latest stable version available.
Important milestones in PHP’s release history are summarized in the following table −
| Version | Description |
|---|---|
Version 1.0 |
Officially called "Personal Home Page Tools (PHP Tools)". This is the first use of the name "PHP". |
Version 2.0 |
Officially called "PHP/FI 2.0". This is the first release that could actually be characterised as PHP, being a standalone language with many features that have endured to the present day. |
Version 3.0 |
Development moves from one person to multiple developers. Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans rewritten the base for this version. |
Version 4.0 |
Added more advanced two-stage parse/execute tag-parsing system called the Zend engine. |
Version 5.0 |
Zend Engine II with a new object model. |
Version 5.1 |
Performance improvements with the introduction of compiler variables in re-engineered PHP Engine. Added PHP Data Objects (PDO) as a consistent interface for accessing databases. |
Version 6.x |
Abandoned version of PHP that planned to include native Unicode support. |
Version 7.0 |
|
Version 7.3 |
Flexible Heredoc and Nowdoc syntax |
Version 8.0 |
|