I am studying on YouTube HTML5 forms with PHP files; the videos either start with a web page containing the form and link to a PHP file or they put everything in php files; I copy the instructors exact files; but they do not work: nothing is posted after filling the form and hitting the submit button.
I have had the files on a USB flash drive then tried them actually on the computer: nothing.
My question is then: "Do I need to have an actual server on my computer in order for PHP files to function?"
Yes. PHP requires a web server to run on.
You can run it on your own computer; the web server doesn't have to be connected to the internet while you are creating and testing your PHP scripts off your local machine. You can read more about this on the official PHP What do I need page
You can download one of the following local servers:
Windows: WAMP
OSX: MAMP
Linux: LAMP
XAMPP is also an option, it's cross-platform (as referenced by ATechGuy)
Here is a good explanation of Why a web server is required to run PHP. Basically it is because PHP is a dynamic server-side scripting language.
However if you just want to run simple PHP scripts, with no web pages. This is possible without a web server running. See this question: How can I run a php without a web server?
Yes, PHP will need to run on a server in order to execute. If you have a Mac, it should be equipped to run an Apache server. I found this article to be really helpful when developing with PHP - https://jason.pureconcepts.net/2015/10/install-apache-php-mysql-mac-os-x-el-capitan/
Yes. PHP files contain code that must be handled by an interpreter, that is, a program that reads the PHP code and outputs accordingly. This can be done without a webserver (using command line php) but PHP is most commonly used with a web server.
You want to setup some sort of stack with a web server and php. A lot of beginners use apache as a web server, and since you are comfortable using youtube for learning, a simple search for "apache php" and your operating system.
Related
I'm new to web development. I'm trying to execute a shell script using PHP's shell_exec(). Inside the script, I'm trying to invoke a GUI application(Qt). When I executed the PHP script from a terminal the application started as expected. But when I opened it from browser an empty blank page appeared.
I'm using Ubuntu with apache2 server running as service. When I searched in google, the similar problem is solved in the Windows environment by allowing apache service to interact with the desktop.
PHP Script:
<?php
$log = shell_exec('sh testcmd.sh');
?>
testcmd.sh:
./Program1
Any help provided will be highly appreciated.
It is somewhat unclear what you're asking.
If you wish that browsing to a certain web site will run a PHP script that will open a GUI app for the client to interact with, the answer is "you can't". The reason is that the way the setup works is that the server and the client run on different machines, and your PHP runs on the server machine. As such, the client never gets to see the running program.
The above is true also for Windows. The answer you quote in your question does not apply to a server running on a different machine than the client.
If, for whatever reason, you want something that works only when the server and client run on the same machine (or there is someone watching the server's display), then you need to do the equivalent of the Windows answer.
The graphics display on Linux (assuming you're not running wayland) is using a protocol called X11. In order for the display to appear, your GUI program needs two things. The first is to know which display it needs to use. This is supplied with an environment variable called DISPLAY. The second is an authorization to actually use that display.
So in order for your PHP script to run a GUI app that will show its GUI, you will need to first do the following steps:
Set the DISPLAY variable to the correct value (copy from your desktop environment).
Run xauth add something, where you can get what something is by running xauth list on your desktop environment.
If you do these two things (in this order), your GUI should show up.
I have two html forms and two php scripts. The first one is a form which is supposed to submit a users email to a .txt file, and the other is a Stripe payment form which uses php code to charge the customer.
Now my problem is that there are some issues with the two php scripts, that I can't figure out how to fix, because I am not really sure how to test the scripts. Normally when testing the html scripts I would just open the html files in my browser, but that doesn't work on my php scripts as the site just shows what is written in the scripts when called/submitted.
So my question is how do I test my scripts, without having to use a hosting account and can I even test it like this?
You need to run a web server on your local computer to test it out. I would suggest looking into something called Vagrant, which allows you to fairly easily create virtual machines on your computer in which you can install anything you like without fear of messing up anything else. If you go here you can even find a "box" to create a virtual machine that already has apache and php installed.
Depending on your version of PHP there's a webserver builtin right into PHP:
http://php.net/manual/en/features.commandline.webserver.php
You probably have to install a web server locally with php enabled. Since php is a server side language it needs a server to run on, in order to send you back the html, after execution. If you need to see the result on a browser.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAMP_%28software_bundle%29.
Or run your script from terminal (you must have php installed) if you don't need to see the result in the browser and just want to run your script.
$ php myscript.php
I am a desktop application / database programmer customizing an ERP application in a Windows environment. I have also done documentation with HTML and javascript on our intranet. I have not done any web programming.
I need to convert an Access 2003 application. Instead of using .Net I think it would be wiser to use HTML to allow access from a tablet. This app will display drawings based on certain lookup values (i.e. part number) stored in a SQL server database. After some research it seems PHP is the best choice. But the things I have found explain on a server supplying the pages and not running locally. I see Apache and IIS mentioned but are these needed if the pages will be loaded on a single machine (or multiple machines but all pages will be present in a single directory structure).
When I search for running pages locally I get pages accessing a databse locally. But the database will be on a server.
Can someone steer me in the right direction?
if you want to use PHP then if you put your application online you can use MySql for the database. You will not need to make any changes because any web server uses mysql with php.
If you want to use PHP with SQL server then you will need on your server to install the Microsoft Drivers for PHP for SQL Server . in the following link you will have the documentation:
[www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20098][1]
PHP has a built-in webserver since 5.4.0: http://php.net/manual/en/features.commandline.webserver.php
If you have PHP (>= 5.4) on your machine, you already have a webserver.
If i understand your question correctly you want to have the database on the tablet. That is possible, simply by installing the web and database server locally. Restrictions might apply depending on your tablet (OS) manufacturer though.
You could also have a "regular" web server / database server setup, and use the localstorage of your tablet's browser to have the result pages available in offline mode, and sync your data when possible, using php and maybe ajax scripts.
Since you don't want the presented data to be web-accessible (or at least not public), but you do want the presentation to be through HTML-pages, I can come up with two ideas:
Use a scripting language to access MS SQL Server, extract the data, and present it as HTML. Since you like PHP, maybe Perl with a suitable DB-access library might be a good idea.
PHP as you suggest, some kind of web-server, and a rigorous lock-down configuration so that the webserver is only accessible locally. Depending on the sensitivity of your data, this might be the worse option.
Enable Internet Information Server on your Windows system (using "Turn Windows Features on or off in the control panel) and install PHP: http://php.iis.net/
Alternatively Apache xampp installs the Apache webserver, MySQL (when wanted) and PHP on your system: https://www.apachefriends.org/index.html. To connect to Sql Server you have to remove the semicolon ; before the extension=php_mssql.dll line in the php.ini.
In my application i have to deploy my application on client system.
So is there any way to run my php application without installing xampp...
Because the client should access it as a readymade app without installing anything...
This is the description of my project...
We have to develop an application where the client will have our application he will connect to remote server
Then he will download the data from remote server...
Then he uses that downloaded data using that app
Here my requirement is the user may not have the knowledge of installing the xampp...
So is there any way to run the application in user system just by copying some files
U may suggest me a one click solution (like using installer which will include installation of xampp and copying my data into user system)
I really dont want to use any external software to render no database PHP pages so I did some digging and found that if you run php -S localhost:port in your working directory you basically start a server there.
S is a capital S and not s
I'm a big fan of server2go. I've used it to deploy PHP applications on CD/DVD. It comes with MySQL and is relatively easy to configure. I've even replaced their splash screen with my own so no one knows I'm using it. It's donationware, but I was impressed enough to donate:
server2go-web
With this application, you don't have to install all that other stuff. It's self-contained in this executable and directory.
EDIT: To clarify, server2go does not install anything on the client machine. It runs as an exe only when you specifically want it to. When you click on the .exe file, it launches your PHP application in a browser window, then you can right-click on the server2go icon in the system tray and close it when you're done.
EDIT2: One gotcha: if you want to save data to the MySQL db on the client machine, you'll need to copy serve2go to a directory on the client machine or run it on a writable USB stick. If you run this application off CD/DVD, it will be able to read data from the database, but not write.
The better way is to use PHP Desktop Application. It will allow you to run your PHP Script like a Desktop application and you don't need to install Xampp or any other web server to run.
PHP Desktop Application
After downloading the .Zip file unzips it to any folder that you like. After unzipping, Go to the folder, and there you can see a folder "www". Delete all the files contained in it and move all your php script to it.
Once you moved all your files into it. Run the .Exe file named "PHP desktop-chrome"
It will open your PHP Script really like a Desktop Application.
This script doesn't require any kind of server software like Xampp, Wamp, Etc installed in your PC.
You can either host the php application or install the application into one system as server and call in client system using the ip of the server system like the following
http://**ip address/php file name
If you don't want your client to install anything then you should create Client Server architecture, there is no another way.
PHP Application are not meant to be deployed on multiple clients. It's meant to be deployed on a webserver (your own server with sth. like IIS or XAMPP) so the clients can access it via their browser and doesn't have to install anything more.
If you want to deploy applications on the client pc's i recommened an other programming language like Java or C/C++.
I simply used xampp zip version so i copied my application into htdocs and the whole xampp is given to the customer so he simply running the application eazily without installation.
Make sure you have installed php from https://www.php.net/downloads.php. Once installed add it to path. Lastly type php -S localhost:8000
PHP needs to be installed on the machine it is running at in order to make sure it works. Since the app may grow and may require extension installing, PHP upgrading over time, hosting this on a client machine is not a very easy task in terms of management. You may want to host your project on a server and write a small bash script sending requests to the API.
If, for some reason you cannot host this on a server where your clients would send requests via the bash scripts, then you may want to install only PHP. If it does not need to listen to HTTP requests, then you do not need a server, you can just implement the PHP application and create a bash script so the user will be able to run it from the UI of their operating system.
No, you need some kind of server - Wamp, Xampp, etc.
You can host it online, and then he can just browse it from his PC.
Is there a way to distribute a PHP program like a desktop app, so that even if the user of the app doesn't have a local server environment setup on there PCs, the app will still work?
I was thinking, if there was some type of portable server environment program which includes PHP/Apache, then we could create a batch file which when clicked would start up apache in the portable program and launch the PHP app in the user's default browser. That way PHP apps could be distributed like desktop apps.
But the question is, is there such a portable server environment program that can be used for this?
Yes, if you google for XAMPP portable, you can find several versions of fully portable, fully functioning xampp servers for the go. You would have to make sure it contains all the security settings and extensions you need.
The file your user launches should be an .html file to be sure it opens in your browser. As you need to point the user to his own localhost to run your app (otherwise PHP won't be executed and he'd see a plain html file), you'd have to create a redirect, possibly using javascript or a simple "click here to start" link.
The XAMPP only provides half of the solution:
In addition to the XAMPP you can use Phar files that give you the ability to package your PHP applications as a unit for installation and/or deployment.
You can configure a separate php file which will handle any database creations and initial configuration which can be set to run on the first time.
For a helpful start guide consider the following link:
http://phpmaster.com/packaging-your-apps-with-phar/
Finally if you want to make it seamless (easier) to the user, consider writing a Batch script which will handle running some of the task required (Such as starting apache and mysql and running run.php). Take note of using relative rather than absolute directories to make script development easier.