PHP FAQ

What is PHP?

PHP is a widely-used general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for Web development and can be embedded into HTML.

Where can I learn more about PHP?

Online resources:

• The official PHP Homepage with documentation, tutorials, FAQ, etc.
• The W3Schools PHP Tutorial is a great way to learn about PHP by example.

Books:

• PHP Cookbook by David Sklar and Adam Trachtenberg.
• PHP in Action by Dagfinn Reiersøl with Marcus Baker and Chris Shiflett. (Book review on Slashdot.)

How is PHP used by Moodle?

• Installing Moodle/Creating custom php.ini files
• PHP settings by Moodle version
• PHP error logs
• php.ini related discussions in the Moodle forums

Which version of PHP is required by Moodle?

• See Installing_Moodle#Requirements.
• You can tell which version you are using by looking at PHP info.

How do I install PHP?

Usually PHP is installed alongside Apache and MySQL in a combination known as AMP, see Installing AMP for details. It is possible to build PHP from source - you might have to if you need a very new version for developing Moodle - however, it is quite challenging. PHP itself has many dependencies that you will need to obtain and build, some of which are also tricky to build from source (e.g. GD).

See also:

• Installing MSSQL for PHP
• Installing Oracle for PHP
• Installing Postgres for PHP