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Php terms

58 terms of 1466 total · page 1 of 3

🐘 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.

More on PHP history · 5 references · key concepts

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

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
🧠 Logic graph · PHP
41 edges here
10 verbs used
44 terms touched
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PDO Error Handling PHP 5.1+
PDO has three error modes — silent, warning, and exception — controlling how database errors surface.
2mo ago php beginner
PDO Fetch Modes PHP 5.1+
Constants controlling how PDO returns rows — as arrays, objects, or custom classes.
2mo ago php beginner
PDO lastInsertId() PHP 5.1+
Returns the auto-increment ID generated by the most recent INSERT statement.
2mo ago php beginner
PDO Named Placeholders PHP 5.1+
Named parameters (:name) in prepared statements — more readable than positional ? placeholders for queries with multiple parameters.
2mo ago php beginner
PDO query() vs prepare() PHP 5.1+
PDO query() executes raw SQL immediately — prepare() parameterises it. query() must never include user-controlled values.
CWE-89 OWASP A3:2021
2mo ago php beginner 9.8
Diagram: PDO Transactions PDO Transactions PHP 5.1+
PDO wraps multiple queries in an atomic unit — either all succeed or all roll back.
2mo ago php intermediate
PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES PHP 5.1+
Controls whether PDO sends real prepared statements to the database or emulates them client-side in PHP.
CWE-89 OWASP A3:2021
2mo ago php intermediate
PDOStatement::bindParam() vs bindValue() PHP 5.1+
Two PDO methods for binding variables to placeholders — bindParam() binds by reference (evaluated at execute), bindValue() binds by value (evaluated immediately).
2mo ago php intermediate
PDOStatement::rowCount() PHP 5.1+
Returns the number of rows affected by the last DELETE, INSERT, or UPDATE — unreliable for SELECT.
2mo ago php beginner
PHP Generators PHP 5.5+
Functions using yield that produce values lazily — one at a time — instead of building a complete array in memory.
2mo ago php intermediate
Diagram: PHP Fibers — Internals & Scheduler Patterns PHP Fibers — Internals & Scheduler Patterns PHP 8.1+
How PHP Fibers work under the hood — stack allocation, suspension mechanics, and how to build a cooperative multitasking scheduler on top of the Fiber API introduced in PHP 8.1.
2mo ago php advanced
password_hash() — Native Bcrypt (PHP 5.5) PHP 5.5+
PHP 5.5 added password_hash() and password_verify() — the only correct way to hash and verify passwords. Never use MD5, SHA1, or unsalted hashes.
2mo ago php beginner
PCNTL Signals in CLI PHP PHP 7.1+
The PCNTL extension lets CLI PHP scripts handle OS signals (SIGTERM, SIGINT, SIGUSR1) — enabling graceful shutdown and hot reload in long-running daemons.
2mo ago php advanced
PHP 3 — Birth of the Language (Rasmus Lerdorf) PHP 3.0+
PHP 3 (1997) was the first version called 'PHP' — a complete rewrite by Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans that transformed Rasmus Lerdorf's Personal Home Page tools into a proper language.
2mo ago php beginner
PHP 4 Objects Passed by Value (Pre-5 Gotcha) PHP 4.0+
PHP 4 copied objects on assignment — $b = $a created a full clone. PHP 5+ passes object handles by value (reference semantics). This was the biggest PHP 4 pain point.
2mo ago php intermediate
PHP 4 — Zend Engine 1, Classes Without OOP PHP 4.0+
PHP 4 (2000) introduced the Zend Engine 1.0 — dramatically improving performance and adding basic classes, though objects were passed by value and OOP was rudimentary.
2mo ago php beginner
PHP 6 — The Version That Never Shipped
PHP 6 was a major development effort (2005–2010) that aimed to bring native Unicode support to PHP but was abandoned due to complexity and performance problems — its features were later cherry-picked into PHP 5.3 and 5.4.
2mo ago php beginner
PHP 8 — Key Features PHP 8.0+
PHP 8.0–8.4 introduced match expressions, named arguments, union types, nullsafe operator, fibers, enums, readonly properties, first-class callables, and a JIT compiler — the most significant evolution of the language since PHP 5.
2mo ago php intermediate
PHP 8.5 — What's Coming PHP 8.5+
PHP 8.5 is in active development (expected late 2025). Confirmed additions include pipe operator |>, first-class callable improvements, and several standard library additions. The release follows PHP's annual November release cycle.
2mo ago php beginner
PHP CSV Handling (fgetcsv / str_getcsv) PHP 5.3+
PHP provides fgetcsv() for reading CSV line-by-line from a file handle and str_getcsv() for parsing a CSV string — both handle quoted fields, embedded commas, and escaped characters correctly where explode() does not.
2mo ago php beginner
✓ schema.org compliant