2. Server-Side Programming with PHP

In the beginning of the Internet, web servers dispatched only static content to the client. Soon, though, web servers became capable of dispatching dynamic content as well. To do this, a mechanism was needed that offered programming capabilities as well as the possibility of interfacing the terminal with other programs. Popular mechanisms for this purpose were the Common Gateway Interface (CGI) and later the PHP language. PHP is a recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor. PHP is a general-purpose open source language that can be embedded in an HTML file or be included in its own stand-alone PHP file.