Php terms
The engine behind the web's most-used server-side language
PHP powers an enormous portion of the web — from WordPress and Laravel to custom e-commerce platforms. This category covers the language internals, core functions, OOP features, type system, performance patterns, and PHP-specific quirks that every serious PHP developer should understand deeply. Whether you are writing procedural scripts or building full-stack applications with modern PHP 8.x features, these terms form the foundation.
MySQL charset=utf8mb4 PHP 5.1+
The correct MySQL character set for full Unicode support — including emoji and supplementary characters that the older utf8 charset cannot store.
1mo ago
php beginner
MySQL Connection Pooling PHP 5.1+
Reusing database connections across requests instead of opening and closing a new connection on every request.
1mo ago
php intermediate
MySQL DSN (Data Source Name) PHP 5.1+
The connection string passed to PDO specifying the database driver, host, port, database name, and charset.
1mo ago
php beginner
match Expression (PHP 8.0) PHP 8.0+
PHP 8.0's match is a stricter switch — uses strict (===) comparison, each arm is an expression (not statements), returns a value, and throws UnhandledMatchError if no arm matches.
2mo ago
php beginner
mb_string — Multibyte String Functions PHP 4.0+
PHP's native string functions operate on bytes, not characters. The mb_string extension provides mb_strlen(), mb_substr(), mb_strtolower() and 100+ equivalents that correctly handle multibyte encodings like UTF-8.
2mo ago
php intermediate
mcrypt Deprecation — Migrate to OpenSSL PHP 5.0+
mcrypt was deprecated in PHP 7.1 and removed in PHP 7.2 — migrate all encryption to OpenSSL (openssl_encrypt) or libsodium (sodium_crypto_secretbox).
2mo ago
php intermediate
Memory Exhaustion PHP 4.0+
PHP's Allowed Memory Size Exhausted fatal error — caused by loading too much data into memory at once, unbounded loops accumulating objects, or memory leaks in long-running processes.
2mo ago
php intermediate
Migrating from PHP 4 to PHP 5 PHP 4.0+
PHP 4→5 migration: objects now pass by reference, add visibility (public/protected/private), replace var with typed properties, fix object assignment semantics, and adopt try/catch.
2mo ago
php intermediate
Migrating from PHP 7 to PHP 8 PHP 7.0+
PHP 7→8 migration: fix type coercion changes (stricter), remove deprecated functions (each(), create_function()), update match/constructor promotion, check third-party compatibility.
2mo ago
php intermediate
Magic Quotes — What They Were and Why Removed PHP 3.0+
Magic quotes automatically escaped incoming data with addslashes() in PHP 3/4/5 — removed in PHP 5.4 because it caused more problems than it solved and gave developers false SQL injection protection.
2mo ago
php beginner
match() Default Arm vs No Default PHP 8.0+
match() without a default arm throws UnhandledMatchError if no arm matches — unlike switch, which silently falls through.
2mo ago
php intermediate
max_execution_time & set_time_limit() PHP 4.0+
max_execution_time limits script CPU time (not wall-clock time) — use set_time_limit(0) sparingly for long-running CLI tasks, never for web requests.
2mo ago
php beginner
Migrating from PHP 5.x to PHP 7 and 8 PHP 5.0+
PHP 7 removed mysql_*, ereg functions, and several deprecated features — a systematic approach using Rector and PHPCompatibility catches 95% of issues automatically.
2mo ago
php intermediate
mysql_* Functions — Why They Were Removed PHP 3.0+
The original mysql_* extension was removed in PHP 7.0 after years of deprecation — it lacked prepared statements, making parameterised queries impossible and SQL injection trivially easy.
2mo ago
php beginner
Magic Constants (__FILE__, __DIR__, __LINE__…) PHP 5.3+
PHP's built-in compile-time constants that resolve to contextual information like file path, directory, class name, and line number.
2mo ago
php beginner
Magic Methods (__get, __set, __call…) PHP 5.0+
Special PHP methods invoked automatically in response to language events — property access, method calls, serialisation, and more.
2mo ago
php intermediate
match Expression (PHP 8.0) PHP 8.0+
A stricter, expression-based alternative to switch that uses strict comparison, returns a value, and throws on unmatched input.
2mo ago
php intermediate
match() Exhaustiveness & UnhandledMatchError PHP 8.0+
PHP 8's match expression throws UnhandledMatchError when no arm matches — enforcing exhaustiveness and eliminating silent fall-throughs.
2mo ago
php intermediate
mime_content_type() PHP 5.3+
Detects the actual MIME type of a file by inspecting its content — not its extension or the browser-reported type.
2mo ago
php intermediate
move_uploaded_file() PHP 4.0+
PHP's function for safely relocating an uploaded file from the temporary directory to its final destination.
OWASP A5:2021
2mo ago
php intermediate