Php terms
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.
More on PHP
History
PHP began in 1995 as a simple set of Perl scripts created by Rasmus Lerdorf to track visits to his personal website, evolving into a dedicated language called "Personal Home Page Tools." By version 3.0 (1997–1998), it became a fully-featured server-side scripting language adopted widely for web development, with PHP 4 (2000) introducing the Zend Engine and significantly improving performance and architecture. The object-oriented paradigm matured substantially in PHP 5 (2004), bringing proper class-based inheritance, interfaces, and exception handling, while PHP 7 (2015) delivered major performance gains and type declarations. Modern PHP (8.0+, released 2020 onwards) introduced named arguments, attributes, union types, match expressions, and later DNF types and fibers, reflecting maturation toward enterprise-grade systems while maintaining backward compatibility and its historical accessibility for rapid web development. Today, PHP powers over 75% of websites with known server-side technology, ranging from simple content management systems to complex frameworks like Laravel and Symfony.
Key concepts
- Constants (define vs const)
- Variables & Type Basics
- Arrays & Array Functions
- Functions & Closures
- Object-Oriented Programming Basics
- Exception Handling (try/catch/finally)
- Error Handling in PHP
- Composer & Dependency Management
Best references
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PHP Official Documentation The canonical reference for all PHP language features, functions, and standard library. Essential for accurate syntax, behavior, and version-specific changes across all 270 terms in this category.
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PHP RFC Archive Official Request for Comments documenting the design and rationale behind language features like attributes, enums, fibers, and type system enhancements. Invaluable for understanding why features were introduced and their historical context.
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Modern PHP by Josh Lockhart Seminal practical guide covering contemporary PHP patterns, best practices, and ecosystem tools like Composer. Bridges language features with real-world architectural patterns relevant to dependency injection and error handling.
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PHP-FIG Standards (PSR) Framework Interoperability Group specifications defining community standards for autoloading (PSR-4), coding style, interfaces, and more. Critical for understanding conventions around autoloaders, DI containers, and class organization.
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Composer Official Documentation Complete reference for dependency management, autoloading configuration, and composer scripts. Essential for understanding the modern PHP ecosystem and how Composer resolves the terms related to package management and autoloading.
Typed relationships here
Edges touching a PHP term. How edges work →
- Memory Leak Often seen in PHP-FPM 1d
- Xdebug — Debugging & Profiling Often seen in Debugging PHP 1d
- Error Reporting & Display Often seen in Debugging PHP 1d
- assert() — Code Execution Risk Often seen in Debugging PHP 1d
- PHP Sessions Often seen in Authentication 2d
PHP Fibers — Internals & Scheduler Patterns
PHP 8.1+ 
PHP Preloading (opcache.preload)
PHP 7.4+