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.
PHP Execution Model — Shared-Nothing Architecture PHP 5.0+
Each PHP request runs in a completely isolated process or thread — no memory, globals, or state is shared between requests. Every request bootstraps the entire application from scratch and discards everything when it ends.
2mo ago
php intermediate
PHP Garbage Collection Internals (Cycle Collector) PHP 5.3+
PHP uses reference counting as its primary memory management strategy — when a value's reference count drops to zero it is freed immediately. A secondary cycle collector handles circular references that reference counting alone cannot free.
2mo ago
php advanced
PHP Mail & SMTP PHP 4.0+
Sending email from PHP using mail(), SMTP libraries like PHPMailer or Symfony Mailer, or transactional email APIs — with critical configuration for deliverability, security, and reliability.
2mo ago
php beginner
PHP Memory Model — Zval & Copy-on-Write PHP 7.0+
PHP stores every value in a zval (Zend value) container that holds the type, value, and a reference count. Arrays and strings are copied lazily — the copy only happens when one copy is modified (copy-on-write), making passing large values cheap until mutation.
2mo ago
php advanced
PHP SAPI Types (FPM, CLI, Embed) PHP 4.0+
SAPI (Server API) defines how PHP is invoked — php-fpm for web requests, php-cli for commands, embed for C extensions — each has different lifecycle and configuration.
2mo ago
php intermediate
PHP Sessions PHP 4.0+
Server-side state storage identified by a cookie-based session ID — PHP's built-in mechanism for persisting data across HTTP requests, with security implications for how the session is started, stored, and terminated.
2mo ago
php beginner
PHP Sodium Extension (Libsodium) PHP 7.2+
The Sodium extension (bundled since PHP 7.2) provides modern, misuse-resistant cryptography via the libsodium C library — covering authenticated encryption, key exchange, password hashing with Argon2, and digital signatures with a simple, safe API.
2mo ago
php advanced
PHP Version Upgrade Checklist PHP 5.0+
A systematic PHP upgrade process: check EOL status, run static analysis, update Composer deps, run Rector, test on new version in staging, then deploy — never upgrade directly in production.
2mo ago
php intermediate
PHP/FI — The Origin Story (1994–1997)
PHP began in 1994 as Personal Home Page Tools — a set of Perl scripts Rasmus Lerdorf wrote to track visits to his online résumé. By 1995 it was rewritten in C, and PHP/FI (Forms Interpreter) 2.0 shipped in 1997 as the first publicly released version.
2mo ago
php beginner
Property Hooks (PHP 8.4) PHP 8.4+
PHP 8.4 property hooks add get and set accessors directly to property declarations — eliminating the need for explicit getter/setter methods on simple value objects.
2mo ago
php advanced
Parse Errors & Syntax Debugging PHP 5.0+
A ParseError (E_PARSE) means PHP cannot tokenise your file — the script never runs. Common causes: missing semicolons, unclosed brackets, and typos.
2mo ago
php beginner
PDO Introduction — Replacing mysql_* with Prepared Statements PHP 5.1+
PDO (PHP Data Objects), introduced in PHP 5.1, provided a unified database abstraction layer with named parameters and prepared statements — finally making SQL injection prevention structurally reliable.
2mo ago
php beginner
PHP 5 OOP Revolution — Objects by Reference PHP 5.0+
PHP 5 completely replaced PHP 4's object model — objects became reference-counted handles rather than copies, enabling true OOP with interfaces, abstract classes, visibility, and exceptions.
2mo ago
php intermediate
PHP 7 Performance — 2x Faster Than PHP 5.6 PHP 7.0+
PHP 7.0 (2015) delivered roughly double the throughput of PHP 5.6 through a complete rewrite of Zend Engine internals — without requiring any code changes for most applications.
2mo ago
php intermediate
PHP End-of-Life Schedule & Security Implications PHP 5.0+
Each PHP minor version receives active support for 2 years and security-only fixes for 1 more year — running an EOL PHP version means no patches for discovered vulnerabilities.
2mo ago
php beginner
PHP Date/Timezone Pitfalls PHP 5.1+
Common PHP date and timezone bugs — relying on date_default_timezone_set(), comparing DateTime objects across timezones, and strtotime() ambiguity.
2mo ago
php intermediate
PHP Intl Extension — Unicode PHP 5.3+
Grapheme functions, Normalizer, and Transliterator — correct multilingual text handling beyond what mb_string provides, including emoji and combining characters.
2mo ago
php advanced
Property Hooks (PHP 8.4) PHP 8.0+
PHP 8.4 property hooks attach get and set logic directly to a property declaration — co-locating validation and transformation with the property itself.
2mo ago
php advanced
password_hash() PHP 5.5+
PHP's built-in function for securely hashing passwords using bcrypt or Argon2 with automatic salting.
2mo ago
php beginner
password_verify() PHP 5.5+
Checks a plaintext password against a bcrypt/Argon2 hash produced by password_hash() — the correct way to validate passwords.
2mo ago
php beginner