PHP I : Building & Testing Pages

Building and Testing Pages

Follow this lesson in Ullman Chapter 1.

 

In your web root, create a folder named Backup. Back up the contents of your original web root to this folder.

 

Time to save ourselves some typing

Get the scripts used in our textbook:
http://www.dmcinsights.com/phpvqs2/scripts.php

Unzip them into your web root. Note that the folders are numbered to match the chapters.

 

A Template for XHTML Pages

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN”
“http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml”>
<head>
<meta http-equiv=”content-type” content=”text/html; charset=iso-8859-1″ />
<title>Sample XHTML Page </title>
</head>
<body>
<p>This is an XHTML page. Note that all tags must be closed, and all must be in lower case.</p>
</body>
</html>

Save this file in your web root as index.htm, and view it through your browser.

What’s the difference between looking at the file as http://localhost/index.htm, and looking at it as c:/your_path/index.htm?

 

A Template for PHP Pages

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN”
“http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml”>
<head>
<meta http-equiv=”content-type” content=”text/html; charset=iso-8859-1″ />
<title>Sample PHP Page </title>
</head>
<body>
<p>This is static content.</p>
<p>
<?php
print (“This is dynamically created content.”);
?>
</p>
</body>
</html>

Save it as template.php. What’s the difference between looking at the file as http://localhost/template.php, and looking at it as c:/your_path/template.php?

 

PHP opening and closing tags

<?php
print (“Hello, world!”);
?>

or

<?
print (“Hello, world!”);
?>

or

<%
print (“Hello, world!”);
%>

 

Semicolons

Use them else die;

 

Functions

The PHP Manual at
http://www.php.net/manual/en/index.php
; search for “print.”

See Ullman page 13 for a discussion of researching functions at PHP.net.

 

Printing to the browser

print(“Hello”);

View the page described on Ullman page 14, hello.php. (It’s in the 01 folder.)

 

Sending HTML to the browser

print()

print “print() works fine without parentheses.”

print <<<END
This uses the “here document” syntax to output multiple lines with $variable interpolation. You can send these lines to a function like print(), or…
END;

$var = <<<ends_here
…you can store the resulting string in a variable. Note that the heredoc terminator must appear on a line with just a semicolon following it, with NO extra whitespace!
ends_here;

The ending string is simply a repeat of the starting string, in these examples “END” and “ends here” respectively.

 


The critical escape character: \

View the page described on Ullman pages 16-ff, hello2.php.

 

New line with the \n character:

View the page described on Ullman pages 19-ff, hello3.php.

 

Comments:

// or # , or /* */

View the page described on Ullman page 21, hello4.php.

 

Getting Configuration Information from your Server

<?php
phpinfo();
?>

View the page test.php in the 01 folder.

 

To do for this section:

Begin to construct your own “demo” website in your web root. It should demonstrate:

  • XHTML page construction,
  • PHP script tags and basic functions,
  • Sending XHTML to the browser,
  • Using escape and newline characters, and
  • Using all three types of comments.

 

To do out of class:

Review Chapter 1 of Ullman.