can someone tell me how PHP works, and how it associates with MYSQL?

Question

i understand its a server based language, but can someone tell me how does it work and what are the neccessary programs to be downloaded on a microsoft 2003 server in order to use PHP and how does PHP work with MYSQL

Answer 1

PHP is a scripting language internreter that either runs as a CGI executable or integrates directly into yout HTTP server (such as Apache or IIS). It includes a MySQL client, so it can communicate to MySQL servers.

To run PHP on MS 2003 server, you need to enable Internet Information Services (IIS); once it is up and running (i.e., you can serve HTML pages), you can download PHP:

http://www.php.net/downloads.php

Download the ZIP package, not the PHP installer; the installer only works with Apache.

Then you are ready to install and configure PHP:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/install.windows.iis.php

Note that there are two ways to install PHP under IIS; you can do a CGI binary or an ISAPI module. I usually recommend the latter...

Answer 2

php is a server side script.. it parses the script you make and then outputs the data to a html format or whatever suits you. The interconectivity with mysql works through functions, for example if you would like to fetch a row into a variable in php from a mysql database you would use the function
$row=mysql_fetch_row(mysql_query("select * from table where bla=bla"));
then you would want to put that row into html format
echo ("

Answer 3

Get mySQL Community Server:
http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.0.html

you might also want to look at (but not really necessary, some nice instructions there though):
http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/connector/php/

Get PHP:
http://www.php.net/get/php-5.2.0-win32-installer.msi/from/a/mirror

Installation:
http://www.zdnetasia.com/techguide/webdev/0,39044903,61960072,00.htm

Thats all you need!