Intermediate terms
PDO
PHP 5.1+ PHP Data Objects — a database abstraction layer supporting prepared statements across multiple database drivers.
3mo ago
php intermediate
Penetration Testing
PHP 5.0+
A simulated cyberattack against a system, conducted by security professionals, to identify exploitable vulnerabilities before attackers do.
3mo ago
general intermediate
PHP Deployment Pipeline
PHP 5.0+
A complete CI/CD pipeline for PHP — from push to production — covering lint, test, build, staging deploy, smoke test, and production release.
3mo ago
devops intermediate
PHP Error Levels & error_reporting
PHP 5.0+
1
PHP's graduated error severity system from E_NOTICE to E_ERROR, controlled by error_reporting and display_errors INI directives.
OWASP A5:2021
3mo ago
php intermediate
PHP Extensions Overview
PHP 5.0+
PHP's functionality is extended via C extensions — bundled (PDO, cURL, mbstring) or PECL (Redis, Xdebug, Imagick) — loaded via php.ini.
3mo ago
php intermediate
PHP References (&$var)
PHP 5.0+
References allow multiple variables to point to the same value — powerful but a frequent source of hard-to-debug side effects.
3mo ago
php intermediate
PHP Session Performance & Locking
PHP 5.0+
PHP's file-based sessions acquire an exclusive lock per request — blocking concurrent requests from the same user until the lock is released.
3mo ago
performance intermediate
PHP-FPM
PHP 5.3+
3
PHP FastCGI Process Manager — a high-performance PHP process manager that manages worker pools for web servers like Nginx.
3mo ago
php intermediate
php.ini Security Settings
PHP 5.0+
10
Critical php.ini directives that harden PHP applications by disabling dangerous features and restricting runtime behaviour.
OWASP A5:2021
3mo ago
php intermediate
PHPCS + PHPStan in CI (Workflow Guide)
PHP 5.0+
4
Running PHP_CodeSniffer for style and PHPStan for type/logic errors as separate CI steps — each catching a distinct class of problem.
3mo ago
style intermediate
PHPStan Levels 0–9 Explained
PHP 7.1+
4
PHPStan's 10 strictness levels — from basic undefined variable checks (0) to full generic type inference and strict mixed handling (9).
3mo ago
style intermediate
Predictable Token
PHP 7.0+
Tokens generated with md5(time()) or rand() are trivially guessable because their entropy source is predictable.
CWE-338 OWASP A2:2021
3mo ago
security intermediate
7.5
preg_match() / preg_replace()
PHP 5.0+
PHP's PCRE regex functions — powerful but prone to ReDoS if patterns are not carefully constructed.
3mo ago
php intermediate
Preload, Prefetch & Preconnect
HTML5
Browser resource hints that instruct the browser to fetch resources earlier than it would discover them — reducing latency for critical assets and future navigation.
3mo ago
frontend intermediate
Primitive Obsession
PHP 5.0+
1
Using raw strings, ints, and arrays to represent domain concepts instead of small dedicated value objects.
3mo ago
quality intermediate
Principle of Least Privilege
PHP 5.0+
1
Every component should operate with the minimum permissions required to do its job — nothing more.
3mo ago
general intermediate
Privilege Escalation
PHP 5.0+
1
A flaw that lets a lower-privileged user gain higher access — e.g. reading an admin role from a URL parameter.
CWE-269 OWASP A1:2021
3mo ago
security intermediate
8.8
Processes vs Threads
PHP 7.0+ Processes are independent execution units with separate memory; threads share memory within a process — threads are lighter but require synchronisation to be safe.
3mo ago
concurrency intermediate
Profiling & Benchmarking
PHP 5.0+
1
Measuring where a PHP application spends its time and memory to identify the highest-impact optimisation targets.
3mo ago
performance intermediate
Progressive Web Apps (PWA)
ES2015
2
Web applications that use service workers, a manifest, and HTTPS to provide app-like experiences — installable, offline-capable, and push notification-enabled.
3mo ago
mobile intermediate