PHP programming language is a server-side scripting language that can be deployed in different areas. PHP programming language is primarily used in web development. PHP stands for Hypertext Pre-processor.
PHP is also used for designing client-side Graphical User Interface (GUI). Personal websites to e-commerce websites, all can be developed using PHP programming language. You May join our online php course that can help you to learn and deploy php programming as per industry requirements.
Applications of PHP programming language
PHP programming language has innumerable applications. PHP is used to develop websites ranging from websites that are designed for personal use to websites designed for commercial use. Therefore, PHP programming language has a wide range of applications in web development, few of the applications are mentioned below:
- Web-based Applications and Web pages.
A highly interactive web based application or a web page is preferred these days with a very high degree of customization. People are growing with the growing technology, so are their needs.
Therefore, to fulfil the needs of the people, a web application or a web page that is developed using PHP programming language should have the ability for online transactions and should be able to integrate with database systems along with having an impressive user interface and customization power. The three-tiered architecture of PHP programming language works on a server, browser and a database system in a linear manner.
This three-tiered architecture system of PHP helps in easily providing the mentioned features in a web application or a web page. Due to this, millions of websites are developed using the PHP programming language and the mostly used programming language for server-side programming. Therefore, web-based applications and web pages are the best areas to deploy PHP programming language.
2. Image processing and graphic designing
PHP manages text very well, along with managing text, the PHP programming language also manipulates images.
PHP programming language is integrated with various image processing libraries such as Imagine, WideImage, Image Cache, PHP thumb, etc. the applications developed using PHP programming language allows the image to be rotated, cropped, resized. If needed, thumbnail pictures can be created or watermarks can be added.
This all can be done using PHP. The output images created using PHP can be created in many formats such as jpeg, gif, png, xpm and wbmp. These features can be very easily deployed using PHP programming and are vital for the development of robust web applications and web pages.
3. GUI based Applications.
Although, web applications and web pages are the major area where PHP programming is deployed, PHP can also be sometimes used to design desktop graphical user interface (GUI) based applications.
Extensive knowledge of PHP is required in order to develop graphical user interface (GUI) based applications. Some of the tools used in PHP programming language to create GUI based applications are DevelStudio, GTK 2, etc.
Some of the PHP extensions required to start creating GUI based applications are:
ZZEE PHP GUI– PHP scripts can be converted into Windows applications using this paid solution.
PHP GTK– GIMP toolkit is implemented using this popular extension.
4. e-commerce Applications.
E-commerce Applications are the fastest growing applications these days. From the youth to the old age people, everyone is using e-commerce applications.
Therefore, from online selling to online shopping, small businesses to large enterprises is the need of the hour. Therefore, to create e-commerce website using PHP programming is the need of the hour. For the development of e-commerce websites, PHP uses various frameworks which are CakePHP and CodeIgniter which help in creation of e-commerce websites easier and efficient.
Few examples of e-commerce paltforms created using the PHP programming language are Magento,Zen Cart, Ubercart,OpenCart. These are a few of the examples that explains deployment of PHP programming language in e-commerce.
5. Web Content Management Systems
Creation of Content Management System is one of the vital applications of PHP programming language. PHP supports multiple database systems which include, MySQL, MS Access and Oracle.
PHP can also interact with other services too using the given protocols- LDAP,POP3, NNTP, IMAP, COM, SNMP and HTTP. User friendliness, ability of allowing the clients to update and add content to the website without any in-depth knowledge of HTML and CSS signifies a good Content Management System (CMS) in PHP.
The other features expected in a good CMS are extensibility, production of clean URL’s and being search engine friendly. One can either learn creating a CMS using PHP programming language from scratch with the proper guidance of online resources or one can also use online solutions that are available for free just for the purpose of creating your own CMS. A few of them are Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, Digg, MediaWiki, Silverstripe, etc.
6. Data representation.
The other function of PHP programming language is Data representation. Yes, it possible to represent data using PHP programming language and in various forms.
PHP uses the tool Image_Graph to create various types of graphs such as pie charts, bar graphs, impulse, dot/scatter, step, candlestick, box & whisker, radar. Therefore, this feature of PHP programming, deploys PHP in e-commerce websites and several other websites where data representation is required in a graphical form.
Another use of PHP programming language is the generation of PDF files, for this purpose, PHP uses a library named PDFLib. Generating PDF files using PHP can be beneficial when creating an online invoicing application and an HTML-generated invoice is needed to be converted in PDF format. Then the PDF format invoice can easily be emailed to the client or a printed copy might be sent as well.
7. Creating Flash
Having Flash elements in your website gives you an edge and PHP programming is proved helpful in creating Flash elements in your website. This purpose is fulfilled in PHP by using the Ming library which is an open source library. Ming helps in creating .SWF format movies which include the following features of Flash: morphs, buttons, text, actions, gradients, bitmaps and animations.
PHP is a powerful server side language because of its flexibility, stability, cross platform compatibility and speed. This is the reason why PHP programming language is extensively used by developers in web development. The few of the common areas to deploy PHP programming language are mentioned above.