1. Enterprise PHP - Introduction Enterprise Client-Server Development with PHP Nic Shulver, FCES, Staffordshire University A fifteen credit module based on server-side PHP scripting, security, data access and business-relevant development skills. One staged assignment worth 100% of the marks.

2. Enterprise PHP - Introduction What is a server? File server – file: networked file space FTP server – ftp: remote file space, often read-only Web server – http: web pages and more Mail server – mail: email system News server – news: newsgroups messages, used to be huge

3. Enterprise PHP - Introduction Web Servers Web servers used to be very simple: – Accept requests for information, – Respond with static HTML pages and graphics. Servers can be “asked” to run “service” programs Originally called Common Gateway Interface (CGI) applications, now largely superseded by faster, better integrated solutions

4. Enterprise PHP - Introduction Static HTML “http://www.fcet.staffs.ac.uk/nas1/links.htm” This reference asks the server (fcet) to look in the (shortcut to the) nas1 directory...... and find a plain text file called “links.htm” The simple server knows that.htm and.html files are HTML It sends the files, without much further processing, to the browser [n.b. images] More complex servers can do much more

5. Enterprise PHP - Introduction Dynamic HTML “http://fred.co.uk/scripts/debug.php” This reference asks the server (fred, a commercial server in the uk) to look in the (shortcut to the) scripts directory...... and find a file called “debug.php” The server knows that a.php file is a page with embedded scripting and must be run by the Web server software in a special way Output from the PHP engine is sent to the browser

6. Enterprise PHP - Introduction Many languages available Modern: PHP (.php), VBScript or JScript (in ASP,.asp), ASP.NET (.aspx), Java Server Pages (.jsp), Python (.py) and many others Old CGI: perl (.pl), C, C++, any “normal” programming language (.exe)

7. Enterprise PHP - Introduction PHP PHP means “PHP Hypertext Pre-processor” (sic) Originally it was known as “Personal Home Pages” but that is poor for marketing as a business solution It was also called “perl Hypertext Pre-processor” but PHP is no longer just a web-version of perl The PHP language is a mixture of C, perl and others PHP is supported on many platforms (Mac, PC, Linux…)

8. Enterprise PHP - Introduction PHP – print all server variables <?php phpinfo(32); ?> This looks suspiciously simple! PHPinfo() is a built in function that reports all sorts of information The “32” tells the function to show us the values of the server variables

9. Enterprise PHP - Introduction PHP – print all server variables PHP Variables Variable Value _SERVER["ALL_HTTP"]HTTP_CONNECTION:Keep-Alive HTTP_ACCEPT:*/* HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING:gzip, deflate HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE:en-gb HTTP_HOST:fcetdev1.student.staffs.ac.uk HTTP_USER_AGENT:Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.1;.NET CLR 1.1.4322;.NET CLR 2.0.50727;.NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152;.NET CLR 3.5.30729;.NET CLR 4.0.20506) HTTP_UA_CPU:x86 _SERVER["HTTPS"]off _SERVER["SCRIPT_NAME"]/wwwdata/nas1/DSAtest01/info.php _SERVER["HTTP_COOKIE"]no value _SERVER["AUTH_PASSWORD"]no value _SERVER["AUTH_TYPE"]no value _SERVER["AUTH_USER"]no value

10. Enterprise PHP - Introduction Raw data – “URL encoding” Information is sent from a form to a script in a very odd format If field “name” has the value “G Singh”... and “job” has the value “principal lecturer”... the script will receive the string “name=G%20Singh&job=principal%20lecturer” But PHP splits this up for you and makes it easy to use, so you don’t usually worry about it

11. Enterprise PHP - Introduction Summary There are different types of server We have discussed the reasons for needing dynamic output … and contrasted plain HTML with dynamically created content We have noted the wide range of scripting languages in use on the Internet … and looked at a specific language, PHP We have briefly considered standard URL-encoded parameters

12. Enterprise PHP - Introduction Links Common Gateway Interface (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Gateway_Interface)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Gateway_Interface Apache HTTP Server (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_HTTP_Server)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_HTTP_Server The Apache HTTP Server Project (http://httpd.apache.org/ABOUT_APACHE.html)http://httpd.apache.org/ABOUT_APACHE.html MS Internet Information Services (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Information_Services)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Information_Services The Official Microsoft IIS Site (http://www.iis.net/overview)http://www.iis.net/overview

13. Enterprise PHP - Introduction Links PHP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Php)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Php PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (http://www.php.net/)http://www.php.net/ MySQL, one of the world's most popular open source databases (http://www.mysql.com/?bydis_dis_index=1)http://www.mysql.com/?bydis_dis_index=1