What is PHP?

[king3121]

PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML. If you are new to PHP and want to get some idea of how it works, try the introductory tutorial. After that, check out the online manual, and the example archive sites and some of the other resources available in the links section.
The PHP development team would like to announce the immediate availability of PHP 5.3.3. This release focuses on improving the stability and security of the PHP 5.3.x branch with over 100 bug fixes, some of which are security related. All users are encouraged to upgrade to this release.

Backwards incompatible change:

* Methods with the same name as the last element of a namespaced class name will no longer be treated as constructor. This change doesn't affect non-namespaced classes.

<?php
namespace Foo;
class Bar {
public function Bar() {
// treated as constructor in PHP 5.3.0-5.3.2
// treated as regular method in PHP 5.3.3
}
}
?>

There is no impact on migration from 5.2.x because namespaces were only introduced in PHP 5.3.

Security Enhancements and Fixes in PHP 5.3.3:

* Rewrote var_export() to use smart_str rather than output buffering, prevents data disclosure if a fatal error occurs (CVE-2010-2531).
* Fixed a possible resource destruction issues in shm_put_var().
* Fixed a possible information leak because of interruption of XOR operator.
* Fixed a possible memory corruption because of unexpected call-time pass by refernce and following memory clobbering through callbacks.
* Fixed a possible memory corruption in ArrayObject::uasort().
* Fixed a possible memory corruption in parse_str().
* Fixed a possible memory corruption in pack().
* Fixed a possible memory corruption in substr_replace().
* Fixed a possible memory corruption in addcslashes().
* Fixed a possible stack exhaustion inside fnmatch().
* Fixed a possible dechunking filter buffer overflow.
* Fixed a possible arbitrary memory access inside sqlite extension.
* Fixed string format validation inside phar extension.
* Fixed handling of session variable serialization on certain prefix characters.
* Fixed a NULL pointer dereference when processing invalid XML-RPC requests (Fixes CVE-2010-0397, bug #51288).
* Fixed SplObjectStorage unserialization problems (CVE-2010-2225).
* Fixed possible buffer overflows in mysqlnd_list_fields, mysqlnd_change_user.
* Fixed possible buffer overflows when handling error packets in mysqlnd.

Key enhancements in PHP 5.3.3 include:

* Upgraded bundled sqlite to version 3.6.23.1.
* Upgraded bundled PCRE to version 8.02.
* Added FastCGI Process Manager (FPM) SAPI.
* Added stream filter support to mcrypt extension.
* Added full_special_chars filter to ext/filter.
* Fixed a possible crash because of recursive GC invocation.
* Fixed bug #52238 (Crash when an Exception occured in iterator_to_array).
* Fixed bug #52041 (Memory leak when writing on uninitialized variable returned from function).
* Fixed bug #52060 (Memory leak when passing a closure to method_exists()).
* Fixed bug #52001 (Memory allocation problems after using variable variables).
* Fixed bug #51723 (Content-length header is limited to 32bit integer with Apache2 on Windows).
* Fixed bug #48930 (__COMPILER_HALT_OFFSET__ incorrect in PHP >= 5.3).

For users upgrading from PHP 5.2 there is a migration guide available on PHP: Migrating from PHP 5.2.x to PHP 5.3.x - Manual, detailing the changes between those releases and PHP 5.3.

For a full list of changes in PHP 5.3.3, see the ChangeLog.
PHP 5.2.14 Released!
[22-Jul-2010]

The PHP development team would like to announce the immediate availability of PHP 5.2.14. This release focuses on improving the stability of the PHP 5.2.x branch with over 60 bug fixes, some of which are security related.

This release marks the end of the active support for PHP 5.2. Following this release the PHP 5.2 series will receive no further active bug maintenance. Security fixes for PHP 5.2 might be published on a case by cases basis. All users of PHP 5.2 are encouraged to upgrade to PHP 5.3.

Security Enhancements and Fixes in PHP 5.2.14:

* Rewrote var_export() to use smart_str rather than output buffering, prevents data disclosure if a fatal error occurs.
* Fixed a possible interruption array leak in strrchr().(CVE-2010-2484)
* Fixed a possible interruption array leak in strchr(), strstr(), substr(), chunk_split(), strtok(), addcslashes(), str_repeat(), trim().
* Fixed a possible memory corruption in substr_replace().
* Fixed SplObjectStorage unserialization problems (CVE-2010-2225).
* Fixed a possible stack exaustion inside fnmatch().
* Fixed a NULL pointer dereference when processing invalid XML-RPC requests (Fixes CVE-2010-0397, bug #51288).
* Fixed handling of session variable serialization on certain prefix characters.
* Fixed a possible arbitrary memory access inside sqlite extension. Reported by Mateusz Kocielski.

Key enhancements in PHP 5.2.14 include:

* Upgraded bundled PCRE to version 8.02.
* Updated timezone database to version 2010.5.
* Fixed bug #52238 (Crash when an Exception occured in iterator_to_array).
* Fixed bug #52237 (Crash when passing the reference of the property of a non-object).
* Fixed bug #52041 (Memory leak when writing on uninitialized variable returned from function).
* Fixed bug #51822 (Segfault with strange __destruct() for static class variables).
* Fixed bug #51552 (debug_backtrace() causes segmentation fault and/or memory issues).
* Fixed bug #49267 (Linking fails for iconv on MacOS: "Undefined symbols: _libiconv").

To prepare for upgrading to PHP 5.3, now that PHP 5.2's support ended, a migration guide available on PHP: Migrating from PHP 5.2.x to PHP 5.3.x - Manual, details the changes between PHP 5.2 and PHP 5.3.

For a full list of changes in PHP 5.2.14 see the ChangeLog at PHP: PHP 5 ChangeLog.
TestFest 2010
[23-Jun-2010]

PHP is proud to announce TestFest 2010. TestFest is PHP's annual campaign to increase the overall code coverage of PHP through PHPT tests. During TestFest, PHP User Groups and individuals around the world organize local events where new tests are written and new contributors are introduced to PHP's testing suite.

Last year was very successful with 887 tests submitted and a code coverage increase of 2.5%. This year we hope to do better.

TestFest's own SVN repository and reporting tools are back online for this year's event. New to TestFest this year are automated test environment build tools as well as screencasts showing those build tools in action.

Please visit the TestFest 2010 wiki page for all the details on events being organized in your area, or find out how you can organize your own event.
PHP 5.3.2 Released!
[04-Mar-2010]

The PHP development team is proud to announce the immediate release of PHP 5.3.2. This is a maintenance release in the 5.3 series, which includes a large number of bug fixes.

Security Enhancements and Fixes in PHP 5.3.2:

* Improved LCG entropy. (Rasmus, Samy Kamkar)
* Fixed safe_mode validation inside tempnam() when the directory path does not end with a /). (Martin Jansen)
* Fixed a possible open_basedir/safe_mode bypass in the session extension identified by Grzegorz Stachowiak. (Ilia)

Key Bug Fixes in PHP 5.3.2 include:

* Added support for SHA-256 and SHA-512 to php's crypt.
* Added protection for $_SESSION from interrupt corruption and improved "session.save_path" check.
* Fixed bug #51059 (crypt crashes when invalid salt are given).
* Fixed bug #50940 Custom content-length set incorrectly in Apache sapis.
* Fixed bug #50847 (strip_tags() removes all tags greater then 1023 bytes long).
* Fixed bug #50723 (Bug in garbage collector causes crash).
* Fixed bug #50661 (DOMDocument::loadXML does not allow UTF-16).
* Fixed bug #50632 (filter_input() does not return default value if the variable does not exist).
* Fixed bug #50540 (Crash while running ldap_next_reference test cases).
* Fixed bug #49851 (http wrapper breaks on 1024 char long headers).
* Over 60 other bug fixes.

For users upgrading from PHP 5.2 there is a migration guide available here, detailing the changes between those releases and PHP 5.3.

Further information and downloads:

For a full list of changes in PHP 5.3.2, see the ChangeLog. For source downloads please visit our downloads page, Windows binaries can be found on windows.php.net/download/.
PHP 5.2.13 Released!
[25-Feb-2010]

The PHP development team would like to announce the immediate availability of PHP 5.2.13. This release focuses on improving the stability of the PHP 5.2.x branch with over 40 bug fixes, some of which are security related. All users of PHP 5.2 are encouraged to upgrade to this release.

Security Enhancements and Fixes in PHP 5.2.13:

* Fixed safe_mode validation inside tempnam() when the directory path does not end with a /). (Martin Jansen)
* Fixed a possible open_basedir/safe_mode bypass in session extension identified by Grzegorz Stachowiak. (Ilia)
* Improved LCG entropy. (Rasmus, Samy Kamkar)

Further details about the PHP 5.2.13 release can be found in the release announcement, and the full list of changes are available in the ChangeLog.

[DavidDaniel]

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[cuinan]

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[xuebao]

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Stumbled your URL…
have a great day

[brevedecane]

PHP is a server-side scripting language for creating dynamic Web pages. You can easy create a PHP and HTML pages. It offers excellent connections to different databases like MySQL, Informix, Oracle, Sybase etc.

[kitty15]

Hello Friends.......

Nice tutorial.Thanks for sharing .Keep sharing more tips in the future.

Have a nice time ahead.

Thanks

[karynmonk]

It is a perfect information that clears all my doubts and gives a clear idea regarding that. It is really advantageous for me.I would definably take the benefit of it.

[Zachariahbroune]

- PHP stands for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor
- PHP is a server-side scripting language, like ASP
- PHP scripts are executed on the server
<html>
<body>
<?php
echo "Hello World";
?>
</body>
</html>

[sgcrichi]

i have little simple infor mation of PHP, wich are given below,
PHP is open source and multi platform. PHP runs on Windows NT and several Unix versions, Can be built as an Apache module and as a binary file that can run as CGI. and When it was built as an Apache module, PHP is especially lightweight and fast. Without top creative process, you can return results quickly, but does not require the agreement of mod_perl to keep the image of your server memory small.

[gaelicbright]

PHP Hypertext Preprocessor representatives. There are many open source PHP libraries, including the construction of the core, and many more are readily available. PHP is an open source language, mainly used for dynamic web content and server-side applications.