[some question about start ?]

[!--quoteo--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--]No need to hack php! Just download the source code from php.net

do you even know what hacking is?

[some question about start ?]

its just my opinion, but i wouldn't do anything on windows. linux is a hackers machine.

[Can you take in HTML mark up as a value?]

and will never work. you cant half assign a value to a variable, jump out of php to do something else then come back to php and expect it to be waiting. besides, what are the curly braces there for? your syntax is whack.

[Getting Started]

You dont NEED to learn C to use PHP. In fact, both are pretty different. Trust me, just go straight to PHP. It will save you about two years work.

obviously if he / she has been writting php for 4 years they realise they dont need to learn C in order to write php?

 

ive just started learning C myself. bought a book, but there are a few good sites around. this should get you started. and there is a nice quick reference here. i had a bit of trouble finding much more + i hate learning by reading my computer monitor. hence the book :-P

 

as for a compiler.... what os are you using? any nix based system should come with the gcc compiler. if your on windows you might try dev-C++ it is a windows compiler and ide. you dont need an ide though, any text editor will do.

 

good luck.

[Creating XML with PHP]

what part are you stuck on? making an xml doc is exactly the same as making a html doc.

[Making a search bar like php freak's]

do yourself a favour and learn html, dreamweaver will do you no favours if your learning. one things you will come to realise is that different browsers handle things in different ways, and that you will really need an understanding of the underlying code. sure dreamweaver can get you off to a quick start, but without html knowledge, these kinds of problems are going to pop up all the time.