PHP is a scripting language with which you can create dynamic web pages, if supported by the Internet server. Because it is only an interpreter, the finished page is rendered by the Internet user’s browser.

The interaction with the MySQL database and the Apache Web server the trio WAMP: Windows-Apache-MySQL-PHP. This combination has proven popular for database-generated Internet content creation.

Features at a glance:

• XML support
• SOAP extension to communicate with Web services
• New MySQL extension
• SQL-Lite “on board”
• Database-abstraction layer PHP data objects
• New PCRE module for Perl-AusdrückeHash algorithms
• Compression of PNG images
• XML-writer
• OCI8 extension to communicate with Oracle databases

Conclusion
PHP is easy to learn, and supports numerous databases and logs. One disadvantage: Because pages have to be recalclated for each call, the technique is more resource-hungry than classic HTTP.