Php terms
PDO
PHP 5.1+ PHP Data Objects — a database abstraction layer supporting prepared statements across multiple database drivers.
3mo ago
php intermediate
PHAR Archives & Packaging
PHP 5.2+
PHP's native archive format for self-contained distributable applications — like a JAR file for Java — with a bootstrap stub and compressed contents.
3mo ago
php advanced
PHP CLI & Command-Line Scripts
PHP 5.0+
Running PHP from the command line for scripts, queue workers, cron jobs, and interactive tools — a distinct execution context from web requests.
3mo ago
php beginner
PHP Data Types
PHP 7.0+
PHP's eight primitive types — bool, int, float, string, array, object, callable, null — and how the type system coerces between them.
3mo ago
php beginner
PHP Error Levels & error_reporting
PHP 5.0+
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 FFI
PHP 7.4+
Foreign Function Interface — allows PHP to call C library functions and use C data structures directly, enabling integration with native libraries without writing a PHP extension.
3mo ago
php advanced
PHP Namespaces
PHP 5.3+
Logical groupings that prevent class name collisions and form the basis of PSR-4 autoloading.
3mo ago
php beginner
PHP Preloading (opcache.preload)
PHP 7.4+ Loading PHP files into shared memory at server start so every worker process gets pre-compiled bytecode with zero per-request filesystem overhead.
3mo ago
php advanced
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
PHP 5.0+ Server-side storage keyed by a session ID cookie — the correct place to store authorisation state.
3mo ago
php beginner
PHP Stream Wrappers
PHP 5.0+
PHP's I/O abstraction layer — built-in wrappers like file://, php://, phar://, and http:// let file functions operate over any protocol.
3mo ago
php advanced
PHP-FPM
PHP 5.3+
2
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+
5
Critical php.ini directives that harden PHP applications by disabling dangerous features and restricting runtime behaviour.
OWASP A5:2021
3mo ago
php intermediate
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
Property Hooks (PHP 8.4)
PHP 8.4+
PHP 8.4 allows get and set hooks directly on class properties — replacing boilerplate getter/setter methods with inline logic on the property declaration.
3mo ago
php intermediate
Prepared Statement
PHP 5.1+
A parameterised SQL query where data placeholders are bound separately from the query structure, preventing SQL injection.
3mo ago
php intermediate
Property Hooks (PHP 8.4)
PHP 8.4+
PHP 8.4 property hooks attach get/set logic directly to a property declaration — eliminating getter/setter method boilerplate for common validation and transformation patterns.
php advanced