perugini Thu Nov 15 05:24:29 2001 EDT
Modified files:
/phpdoc/it/chapters intro.xml
Log:
Updated, but not yet translated.
Index: phpdoc/it/chapters/intro.xml
diff -u phpdoc/it/chapters/intro.xml:1.7 phpdoc/it/chapters/intro.xml:1.8
--- phpdoc/it/chapters/intro.xml:1.7 Wed Nov 14 17:35:46 2001
+++ phpdoc/it/chapters/intro.xml Thu Nov 15 05:24:29 2001
@@ -1,13 +1,14 @@
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
+<!-- EN-Revision: 1.24 Maintainer: perugini Status: ready -->
<chapter id="introduction">
<title>Introduction</title>
<sect1 id="intro-whatis">
<title>Che cosa � il PHP?</title>
- <simpara>
- PHP (ufficialmente "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor") � un linguaggio
- di scripting lato server immerso nel HTML.
- </simpara>
+ <para>
+ PHP (acronimo ricorsivo per "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor") � un linguaggio
+ open-source di scripting lato server immerso nel HTML.
+ </para>
<para>
Risposta banale, ma che cosa significa? Un esempio:
</para>
@@ -15,28 +16,34 @@
<example>
<title>Un esempio introduttivo</title>
<programlisting role="php">
-<html>
- <head>
- <title>Esempio</title>
- </head>
- <body>
- <?php echo "Ciao, sono uno script PHP!"; ?>
- </body>
-</html>
+<![CDATA[
+<html>
+ <head>
+ <title>Esempio</title>
+ </head>
+ <body>
+
+ <?php
+ echo "Ciao, sono uno script PHP!";
+ ?>
+
+ </body>
+</html>
+]]>
</programlisting>
</example>
</para>
<para>
- Notate come questo esempio � differente da uno script CGI scritto
+ Notate come questo esempio � differente da uno script scritto
in altri linguaggi tipo Perl o C -- invece di scrivere un programma
con parecchi comandi per produrre HTML, si scrive in HTML con qualche
comando immerso per ottenere dei risultati (in questo semplice esempio,
la visualizzazione di una frase). Il codice PHP � delimitato da speciali
- <link linkend="language.basic-syntax.phpmode">tag</link>che ne indicano
- l'inizio e la fine e che consentono di passare dal modo HTML al modo PHP.
+ <link linkend="language.basic-syntax.phpmode">start ed end tag</link>
+ che ne indicano l'inizio e la fine e che consentono di passare dal modo HTML al
+modo PHP.
</para>
<para>
- What distinguishes PHP from something like client-side Javascript
+ What distinguishes PHP from something like client-side JavaScript
is that the code is executed on the server. If you were to have a
script similar to the above on your server, the client would receive
the results of running that script, with no way of determining what
@@ -44,19 +51,108 @@
to process all your HTML files with PHP, and then there's really no
way that users can tell what you have up your sleeve.
</para>
+ <para>
+ The best things in using PHP are that it is extremely simple
+ for a newcomer, but offers many advanced features for
+ a professional programmer. Don't be afraid reading the long
+ list of PHP's features. You can jump in, in a short time, and
+ start writing simple scripts in a few hours.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ Although PHP's development is focused on server-side scripting,
+ you can do much more with it. Read on, and see more in the
+ <link linkend="intro-whatcando">What can PHP do?</link> section.
+ </para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="intro-whatcando">
<title>What can PHP do?</title>
<para>
- At the most basic level, PHP can do anything any other CGI
- program can do, such as collect form data, generate dynamic
- page content, or send and receive cookies.
+ Anything. PHP is mainly focused on server-side scripting,
+ so you can do anything any other CGI program can do, such
+ as collect form data, generate dynamic page content, or
+ send and receive cookies. But PHP can do much more.
</para>
<para>
- Perhaps the strongest and most significant feature in PHP is its
+ There are three main fields where PHP scripts are used.
+ <itemizedlist>
+ <listitem>
+ <simpara>
+ Server-side scripting. This is the most traditional
+ and main target field for PHP. You need three things
+ to make this work. The PHP parser (CGI or server
+ module), a webserver and a web browser. You need to
+ run the webserver, with a connected PHP installation.
+ You can access the PHP program output with a web browser,
+ viewing the PHP page through the server. See the
+ <link linkend="installation">installation instructions</link>
+ section for more information.
+ </simpara>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <simpara>
+ Command line scripting. You can make a PHP script
+ to run it without any server and any browser.
+ You only need the PHP parser to use it this way.
+ This type of usage is ideal for scripts regularly
+ executed using cron (task sheduler on Windows),
+ or simple text processing tasks. See the section about
+ <link linkend="commandline">Command line usage
+ of PHP</link> for more information.
+ </simpara>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <simpara>
+ Writing client-side GUI applications. PHP is probably
+ not the very best language to write windowing
+ applications, but if you know PHP very well, and
+ would like to use some advanced PHP features in
+ your client-side applications you can also use
+ PHP-GTK to write such programs. You also have the
+ ability to write cross-platform applications this way.
+ PHP-GTK is an extension to PHP, not available in
+ the main distribution. If you are interested
+ in PHP-GTK, visit <ulink url="&url.php.gtk;">it's
+ own website</ulink>.
+ </simpara>
+ </listitem>
+ </itemizedlist>
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ PHP can be used on all major operating systems, including
+ Linux, many Unix variants (including HP-UX, Solaris and OpenBSD),
+ Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, RISC OS, and probably others.
+ PHP has also support for most of the web servers today. This
+ includes Apache, Microsoft Internet Information Server,
+ Personal Web Server, Netscape and iPlanet servers, Oreilly
+ Website Pro server, Caudium, Xitami, OmniHTTPd, and many
+ others. For the majority of the servers PHP has a module,
+ for the others supporting the CGI standard, PHP can work
+ as a CGI processor.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ So with PHP, you have the freedom of choosing an operating
+ system and a web server. Furthermore, you also have the choice
+ of using procedural programming or object oriented
+ programming, or a mixture of them. Although not every
+ standard OOP feature is realized in the current version
+ of PHP, many code libraries and large applications (including the
+ <link linkend="pear">PEAR library</link>) are written only
+ using OOP code.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ With PHP you are not limited to output HTML. PHP's abilities
+ includes outputing images, PDF files and even Flash movies
+ (using libswf and Ming) generated on the fly. You can also
+ output easily any text, such as XHTML and any other XML file.
+ PHP can autogenerate these files, and save them in the file
+ system, instead of printing it out, forming a server-side
+ cache for your dynamic content.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ One of the strongest and most significant feature in PHP is its
support for a wide range of databases. Writing a database-enabled
- web page is incredibly simple. The following databases are currently
+ web page is incredibly simple. The following databases are currently
supported:
<blockquote>
<simplelist columns="3">
@@ -64,6 +160,7 @@
<member>dBase</member>
<member>Empress</member>
<member>FilePro (read-only)</member>
+ <member>Hyperwave</member>
<member>IBM DB2</member>
<member>Informix</member>
<member>Ingres</member>
@@ -74,6 +171,7 @@
<member>MySQL</member>
<member>ODBC</member>
<member>Oracle (OCI7 and OCI8)</member>
+ <member>Ovrimos</member>
<member>PostgreSQL</member>
<member>Solid</member>
<member>Sybase</member>
@@ -81,22 +179,50 @@
<member>Unix dbm</member>
</simplelist>
</blockquote>
+ We also have a DBX database abstraction extension allowing you
+ to transparently use any database supported by that extension.
+ Additionally PHP supports ODBC, the Open Database Connection
+ standard, so you can connect to any other database supporting
+ this world standard.
</para>
<para>
PHP also has support for talking to other services using protocols
- such as IMAP, SNMP, NNTP, POP3, HTTP and countless others. You can also
- open raw network sockets and interact using other protocols.
+ such as LDAP, IMAP, SNMP, NNTP, POP3, HTTP, COM (on Windows) and
+ countless others. You can also open raw network sockets and
+ interact using any other protocol. PHP has support for the WDDX
+ complex data exchange between virtually all Web programming
+ languages. Talking about interconnection, PHP has support for
+ instantiation of Java objects and using them transparently
+ as PHP objects. You can also use our CORBA extension to
+ access remote objects.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ PHP has extremely useful text processing features, from the
+ POSIX Extended or Perl regular expressions to parsing XML
+ documents. For parsing and accessing XML documents, we
+ support the SAX and DOM standards. You can use our XSLT
+ extension to transform XML documents.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ While using PHP in the ecommerce field, you'll find
+ the Cybercash payment, CyberMUT, Verysign Payflow
+ Pro and CCVS functions useful for your online payment
+ programs.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ At last but not least, we have many other interesting
+ extensions, the mnoGoSearch search engine functions,
+ the IRC Gateway functions, many compression utilities
+ (gzip, bz2), calendar conversion, translation...
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ As you can see this page is not enough to list all
+ the features and benefits PHP can offer. Read on in
+ the sections about <link linkend="installation">installing
+ PHP</link>, and see the <link linkend="funcref">function
+ reference</link> part for explanation of the extensions
+ mentioned here.
</para>
-<!--
- <figure>
- <title>Internal Structure</title>
- <graphic fileref="../images/php3_internal_structure.gif"/>
- </figure>
- <figure>
- <title>Request Scheme</title>
- <graphic fileref="../images/php3_request_scheme.gif"/>
- </figure>
--->
</sect1>
<sect1 id="intro-history">
@@ -130,15 +256,22 @@
and a lot of it was completely rewritten.
</simpara>
<simpara>
- Today (end-1999) either PHP/FI or PHP 3 ships with a number of
- commercial products such as C2's StrongHold web server and RedHat
- Linux. A conservative estimate based on an extrapolation from
- numbers provided by <ulink url="&url.netcraft;">NetCraft</ulink>
+ The latest version (PHP 4) uses the <ulink
+ url="&url.zend;">Zend</ulink> scripting engine to deliver higher
+ performance, supports an even wider array of third-party libraries
+ and extensions, and runs as a native server module with all of the
+ popular web servers.
+ </simpara>
+ <simpara>
+ Today (1/2001) PHP 3 or PHP 4 now ships with a number of
+ commercial products such as Red Hat's Stronghold web server.
+ A conservative estimate based on an extrapolation from
+ numbers provided by <ulink url="&url.netcraft;">Netcraft</ulink>
(see also <ulink url="&url.netcraft-survey;">Netcraft Web Server
- Survey</ulink>) would be that PHP is in use on over 1,000,000
- sites around the world. To put that in perspective, that is more
- sites than run Netscape's flagship Enterprise server on the
- Internet.
+ Survey</ulink>) would be that PHP is in use on over 5,100,000
+ sites around the world. To put that in perspective, that is
+ slightly more sites than run Microsoft's IIS server on the Internet
+ (5.03 million).
</simpara>
<!--
<figure>
@@ -146,13 +279,6 @@
<graphic fileref="&url.php.stats;"/>
</figure>
-->
- <simpara>
- Also as of this writing, work is underway on the next generation
- of PHP, which will utilize the powerful <ulink
- url="&url.zend;">Zend</ulink> scripting engine to deliver higher
- performance, and will also support running under webservers other
- than Apache as a native server module.
- </simpara>
</sect1>
</chapter>
@@ -172,4 +298,7 @@
sgml-local-catalogs:nil
sgml-local-ecat-files:nil
End:
+vim600: syn=xml fen fdm=syntax fdl=2 si
+vim: et tw=78 syn=sgml
+vi: ts=1 sw=1
-->
