im new to all this and need some serious help!!!

jamesboynton

I work on a mac using OS9 and am looking to learn PHP and MySQL in order to build database driven websites. I have web hosting which supports PHP 5 and has MySQL enabled.

"It is easy to setup a web server with PHP support on any operating system, including Linux and Windows"

quote taken from php.net

What does setting up a web server mean?? does it mean locally?? like i said before my web host supports PHP, so is the reason i need it locally to view pages without uploading???
Also using a Mac am i using linux or something like that????

God im stuck... any help would be great

thanks

bretticus

Wow,

No offense, but maybe you should have posted this in the newbie forum. I mean, this is a forum for PHP developers and you are vague on what a Web server is. However...

Since, we were all newbies once...I remember how you feel!

First, I'll Define a few terms:

Linux
Web Server
Apache
PHP
MySQL
[/list=1]
1. Linux is an operating system just like OS 9 is an operating system. Linux is popular because it is very powerful and free. Also, many developers have contributed a plethora of software to be included in Linux. The drawback for most is that, since it's free, it takes an individual with significant technical knowledge to install it typically.
2. A Web Server is basically a software program whose job is giving your Web Browser (Internet Explorer, Netscape, etc...) data to layout a Web page. There are various web servers made by various companies and individuals.
3. Apache is the name of a popular Web server that is pretty much standard for Linux. Apache Website. On its own, it can basically read HTML files and send them to your browser.
4. PHP offers the ability to create HTML data programatically. This is useful when you want interactivity in a Website. Basically, it's a programming language created specifically for Web programming or Web development. PHP is frequently used along with Apache. In other words, PHP is kind of a plugin for Apache (allthough there are PHP versions for other Web servers.) A scenario to explain how they work together might be like this: You request a Webpage in your browser program. Apache is listening for your request. Once you connect, Apache looks at the file you have requested. If it detects PHP source code, it turns that source code over to PHP. PHP parses the source code and, depending on what you've programmed PHP to do, spits out HTML back to Apache. Apache in turn "appends" this output, along with the file contents that PHP didn't parse, back to your browser so you'll see a nice little Webpage.
5. MySQL is a database server. SQL is a language for retrieving data in a database. A database can be a very powerful tool for storing data about user accounts, etc. (basically anything you need it to store.) PHP has built in tools (functions) that allow you to connect to various database servers and request data from them. MySQL is also popular on Linux (Like all the previous software I've mentioned, it was created to run on Linux initiallyI think.)
Now with that in mind...

As far as I know (and I'm no Mac lover), there's no version of Apache or PHP for OS9 (I might be wrong but I'll leave that research in your capable hands.) OSX (OS 10), however, is a competely new Operating System for Macs. It is SIMILIAR to Linux at it's core and, therefore, you can get Linux-type programs for it (all the ones I've mentioned for example.) In fact, I'd bet all of these programs come with OSX.

Your Web host offers PHP. meaning that when you learn all about PHP and web pages, you can upload them to your web host and they will run 'cause the software is already installed on their Web server

About the "local" thingy...many developers like to have all these tools installed on their own computer to test the PHP programming before commiting "buggy" PHP scripts (PHP source code) to a public Web server. So, yes, it does mean locally installed like you assumed.

And yes, this was intended to be basic. If you want further help, I suggest you do some extensive research. For example, you can get alot of basic tech info at a site like http://whatis.techtarget.com/ . www.php.net has all the documentation for PHP. www.mysql.com will provide all the information you need to know about MySQL. When these documents don't make sense, refer to sites like the first one I mentioned.

Good luck!