php question

[Sanjib Sinha]

I would like to know the role of server in executing php script.

Does it do the same job that a compiler does in C language?

[Philip]

Pretty much.

 

Actually PHP is/was written in C - so you'll notice a lot of similarities

[RussellReal]

it doesn't actually COMPILE it..

 

what it does is EXECUTE the PHP, then sends whatever PHP says to send, to the client

 

like

 

<?

  echo "hi";

?>

 

php will evaluate the PHP tag <? ... ?>

 

php will then go over the commands it encounters

 

echo "hi";

 

echo "hi"; just basically means "output: hi"

 

so thats the end,

 

then php sends the OUTPUT to the client

 

then the client gets the data, lables it HTML (in most cases, unless specified otherwise) then renders it..

 

it is only run once, and you cannot run it again after php has finished executing for that request