Advantages of PHP In MySQL Environment
A scripting tool enables you to control one or more applications when executed. PHP is a scripting tool designed for Web development. PHP supports embedding scripts into HTML code. Developers can use PHP scripts to create HTML Web pages that can read and write data from a database.
PHP is a scripting language that is executed at run-time. It enables interaction of the application with the database. You can use PHP and MySQL together to manage data on the web. PHP is compatible with MySQL. You can also store and manage, information from the database. The below figure shows the interaction between the client, server, and database.
Here the server is connected to several clients. The database, server, and client maintain a two-way communication. This system appears to be simple; however, it has certain limitations. For example, when a client requests for data, the browser sends a request to the server. The server locates the data from the database, and returns it to the browser. If several clients make a request to the server for the same data, then the server will return the data to all the clients. This results in slow performance of the system.
The advantage of using PHP is that the database can be accessed directly through a web page. In this scenario, the client will request for a PHP file. The PHP pre-processor will connect to the database, retrieve the data, convert the data into HTML format, and send it to the browser.
Following are some examples of real-world websites where databases are used:
- Online Ticket Reservation: In an online reservation system you can reserve a seat using the Internet. Your action updates the backend or the database of this booking system. You can access several parts of the database by changing the Uniform Resource Locator(URL).
- Message Boards: On the Internet, message boards are widely present that run on MySQL and PHP. It is an online discussion site where messages can be posted. Message boards running on PHP and MySQL are more efficient because you need to update only one page and the changes are automatically reflected in others.
- Marketing Websites: Consider that a large Website is required to be updated. The Website can be update using few PHP scripts as the information related to these pages is stored in MySQL database. The PHP scripts accesses the MySQL database to obtain the information about the pages.
- Advertising Banners: Consider a website where several advertisement banners are present on the site. These banners are stored in a database on the server. You can call a PHP script to display each banner. In order to insert, modify, or delete a banner you have to access the database. A PHP script can be written to select the database from which the banner will be displayed. The PHP script would select and display the correct banners for the pages on the site.
To run a PHP script, you will need to install the following software:
PHP supports different operating system such as Mac OS X, Linux, UNIX, and Windows
Both PHP and MySQL are open source. This feature makes them cost effective as compared to other software products.
MySQL also supports the command line interface. This interface enables the PHP page to access the database and display the query results.
You can use PHP scripts to control the administration activities of the database. However, it is better to install a PHPMyAdmin on the sever. PHPMyAdmin is an administrative interface for MySQL databases. It consists of set of free scripts for administration of the database.