A concise guide to PHP MySQL and Apache

Concise Study of PHP, Apache & MySQL

Introduction

PHP, Apache & MySQL

The application development platform

Manual Installation of AMP

Installing Apache, MySQL , and PHP on Windows

Installing Apache

Starting and Stopping Apache

Windows Service Manager:

The net command:

Apache Service Monitor:

Installing PHP

Configuring PHP to Use My SQL

Configuring Apache to Use PHP

Testing the Configuration

Installing MySQL

Configuring My SQL

Testing Your Installation

A Far Easier Way to install AMP!

Installing the platform

Testing for PHP and MySQL functionality

Managing MySQL

Creating the Database

Data Entry

PHP Programming Features

Jumping in and out of PHP

Variables

Using Variables

PHP Constants

Numbers & Character Strings

The If Statement

The else statement

More about if statements

Arrays

PHP Building Blocks

MySQL

Other MySQL STATEMENTS

Using the SELECT – WHERE query,

Other MySQL Functions

Aggregate Functions

Using COUNT(*)

SUM Function

MAX Function

MIN Function

Executing SQL Queries from PHP

PHP & MySQL

Displaying Data in the Database

Tips & Tricks

Best Practices

Security

Summary

Introduction

The content of this book aims at those that wish to get to grips with the fundamentals of using Apache, PHP and MySQL to create dynamic web-based applications.

It is now very easy to create websites and even web applications from online tools, however, that does not teach you anything, and you will end up with a web site that looks like any other. It is far more difficult to create a web site that is unique, that you really want, and that others will appreciate.

So how do you develop dynamic websites, ones that you can proudly show to your family and friends?

Well, it is really, as strange as it seems, not that difficult, you only need to know the basics of PHP, Apache and MySQL.

So let's get started handling the basics!

PHP, Apache & MySQL

PHP, Apache and MySQL work very closely together, they are the dynamic trio of web database and application design. PHP is a hypertext scripting language, Apache is the engine that allows PHP to run, and MySQL is a relational database.  PHP and MySQL are two of the programming languages required to make a dynamic web database application. The third, Apache, is a web-server application, which can compile PHP and SQL code into a visible language. Without Apache, a server sided application, you can run code but not visualize the output. Therefore, when programmers start to use SQL and PHP they typically are compiling code using PHP and MySQL, to visualize the results we require Apache.

Our concern though as a programmer is with PHP and MySQL, installing Apache, is relatively straightforward, so we will concentrate on how we can learn to install, configure and ultimately use the trio to create dynamic web applications.

The application development platform

The first things we need to do at a minimum are to collect all of the web server applications, PHP, Apache and MySQL. Now we could take the masochistic route, download these applications all separately and then configure them to work together, however that is a terrible task. There is some logic to that however, as we will get the very latest versions, we will also learn how the applications inter-relate, and learn how we can troubleshoot problems.

Manual Installation of AMP

Now you will see Apache, MySql and PHP, often bundled together, and that stands for Windows or Linux, hence the generic X, followed by the A, for Apache, M for MySQL and P, for PHP. There are many free downloads available, of individual packages, as all these components are open source software. The main problem for a