• PHP stands for Hypertext Preprocessor, and is a server-side scripting language that enables you to  create dynamic content on a website.
• PHP is commonly used to interact with databases such as MySql.

Server-side means that the script is run by the server where the web page is fetched from. 

In general, users find that PHP is easier to use than CGI... Mostly because you can upload PHP driven pages to a website, and the scripts will work straight away without needing to CHMOD the script to make it executable. 
Although there are occasions where you may need to CHMOD a PHP, such as cases where the PHP script needs to write data to another file on the server.

Mixing HTML & PHP code on the same web page is a simple procedure, and most 'general' PHP pages are created using a mixture of PHP and HTML.

example code:  Today's date is <?php echo date("l dS of F Y h:i:s A"); ?>  
returns and prints: Saturday 22nd 2008f November 2008 05:13:53 PM onto the web page

What can PHP do?

We have written a short tutorial for PHP which you can view by clicking here