Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL

A dynamic website means a database driven website. If site owners have dynamic websites they can put additional information in them whenever they like, as well as alter them in order to improve their ranking. In our world of quickly developing industries, PHP & MySQL has proven itself to be the most advanced and reliable technology for dynamic web page creation. PHP (scripting language) and MySQL (relational database) are easy to maintain and are regarded as a general approach to be used for simple programming of dynamic web pages.

PHP is an open-source and can be used by most computing platforms (Windows NT/2000, Unix). It provides connectivity to a great part of the existing databases, including Sybase, Oracle, MySQL.
Nowadays, the most essential thing on Web is content. If you become proficient at HTML and familiar with JavaScript and Dynamic HTML, you have all chances to set up a remarkable Web site design. The next step is to add content to your greatly designed site. To have a high ranking web site that is appealing to visitors you need an updated content and many HTML files.

Since most companies cannot afford to have a constantly employed webmaster, certain people prepare the content of the site and others create its design. Maintenance of a content-driven site may also present a difficulty. It often happens that sites stay with their old and unattractive design due to the reason that it will take quite a long time to rewrite the hundreds of HTML files to display the new design. Although, server-side includes (SSI’s) can make life easier, you still have a great number of files that have to care for in order to implement serious modifications to your site.

The best way to cope with these problems is to opt for database-driven site design. If you divide the design and content of your site, you will be able to manipulate each of them separately. It is not necessary to write HTML for all pages of your site. You have to write a page only for each type of information you wish to display. With a simple system for content manipulation you will be able to add new content alone without worrying about HTML.

PHP has become a convenient programming language able to deal with large data-base driven online environments. It stands for “PHP: HyperText Processor” and describes a server-side scripting language written in HTML context. A PHP script is not sent straightforwardly to the client by the server as it is the case with ordinary HTML pages. It is processed by the server-side installed PHP module or binary. PHP code is decoded and implemented while HTML components are set aside. PHP code offers unlimited possibilities – it can create images, write and read files, communicate with faraway servers. However, the browser can not distinguish PHP, it sees HTML only. In fact what is sent to the user’s web browser is the end result of the PHP code in combination with the HTML in the script.

Thanks to its features and infinite possibilities the PHP scripting language has become one of the most famous and wide-spread languages. Apart from the people working on Unix, PHP is free for all users. You can use it always and everywhere without being necessary to pay for licenses. Since its creation when it was meant to provide macros to help coders manipulate personal home pages, PHP has gone a long way.

Another advantage of PHP is its support for Apache and MySQL. Apache is the most popular server in the world at the moment and MySQL is a free SQL database. Since PHP offers a large number of matchless possibilities in working with them, make sure that your Web host provides PHP/MySQL support.