8 Practical Applications of PHP and Steps to Carve a Career
HP is a server-side scripting language that is often used to build websites and make business apps. PHP is one of the most popular languages for making websites and web apps that are interactive. This is because it has open-source tools and runs quickly. Some of the most popular websites on the web today, like Facebook, Flickr, Yahoo, MailChimp, and Wikipedia, use PHP as part of their end-to-end computing infrastructure.
Why should you learn PHP, and what is it?
PHP is still used a lot in the web development niche, even though big tech stacks can be scary. PHP is used almost everywhere on the web. It is thought that PHP is used by 79.1% of all websites that have a known server-side programming language.
PHP stands for “Hypertext Processor,” and Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf made it public for the first time in 1995. PHP scripts can be easily added to HTML documents that are served at the front end of the server. An interpreter is a back-end module that connects to the web server. So, PHP is a great choice for building full-fledged websites from HTML pages that don’t change.
PHP is great because it can be used in many different ways. PHP is very similar to an object-oriented language, which makes it a very easy language to use. It also has a meta-language for developers that is quite powerful.
Top 8 Uses of PHP in the Real World
PHP can be used to make the following common web applications:
Web pages and apps that run on the Web
A website or web application needs to be highly customizable and have a very interactive user interface. It should also be able to handle online transactions and work with database systems. PHP’s three-tiered architecture, which works in a linear way on browsers, servers, and database systems, makes sure that all of these features work. This is why server-side programming on more than 82% of websites is done with PHP. PHP is also used to script a lot of web apps and Facebook apps.
PHP can be used to make both static and dynamic web pages and applications that run on the web. Developers can change the code so that it can be used in other apps as well. PHP is one of the most popular programming languages because it has built-in features like user authentication, a SQL query builder, CSRF protection, and routing. PHP is a very popular programming language that is also an open-source platform with free licencing.
Web Content Management Systems
PHP works with different databases like Oracle, MySQL, and MS Access. It is also designed to work with other services that use HTTP, LDAP, POP3, IMAP, NNTP, SNM, and COM as protocols. Many PHP frameworks come with templates and libraries that make it easy for developers to manage and change a website’s content. So, PHP is used to make both small, static sites and large, dynamic sites. Some of the best Web Content Management Systems (CMS) that are run by PHP are WordPress and its plugins, the user interface of Drupal, Joomla, Facebook, MediaWiki, Silverstripe, and Digg, among others.
Also read: PHP Web Development Advantages for Small and Large Scale
Applications for Ecommerce
Online sales are an important part of any business today, no matter how big or small it is. Using PHP frameworks like CakePHP and CodeIgniter makes it easy and quick to make e-commerce apps. PHP is used in well-known eCommerce platforms like Magento, OpenCart, Zen Cart, PrestaShop, AgoraCart, and Ubercart. If you want to prepare for PHP interview questions then you can visit the given link.
GUI Based Programs
Another important thing PHP can be used for is to make desktop applications with a Graphical User Interface (GUI). PHP-GTK 2 and ZZEE PHP GUI are two well-known tools that let you write scripts in PHP. These tools compile PHP into.exe files that can run on their own.
Make a Flash
Many PHP frameworks have an open-source library like Ming that lets you make Flash in the.SWF file format. This format has features like gradients, bitmaps (.png and.jpeg files), morphs, text, shapes, buttons, actions, and animations. With PHP, it’s also easy to make flash elements like login forms and email forms and add them to dynamic web pages.
Processing images and making graphics
Changing images is another important use of PHP that gets a lot of attention. Different image processing libraries, such as Imagine, GD library, and ImageMagick, can be added to PHP applications to add a wide range of image processing features, such as rotating, cropping, resizing, adding watermarks, making thumbnails, and generating output images in many formats. Images can be saved in different formats, such as jpeg, gif, wbmp, xpm, and png. This is an important requirement for making websites and web apps that work well.
Data Representation
With tools like Image Graph, PHP can be used to make charts, graphs, and scatter-dot plots that show data in different ways. This feature is often used on client-side e-commerce sites, desktop apps, and other places where data needs to be shown in a clear and graphical way.
How to Make PDF Files
Another important thing PHP can do is make PDF files. PHP can make PDF files and change them with the help of a built-in library tool called PDFLib. This helps us make an online billing system where we can create an HTML-driven PDF (Portable Document Format) file for an invoice.
Because PHP can be put inside HTML, it is very easy for new programmers to use. PHP is simpler than languages like C or Java because it doesn’t need complicated steps to make an HTML page. So, PHP can be used to make a wide range of things, from simple websites to very complicated systems like online stores and management platforms.