absolute newbie looking for help

frederick213

hi... i'm totally lost when it comes to php.... a friend and i started a plan to make a text based game (such as torncity or monocountry for any of you who've heard of it)... but that's not important. when i borrowed a book on html, i found it extremely easy to learn. another friend of mine told me if i wanted to make a text based game, i needed a server and php. and so, i borrowed a book on programming php. i downloaded php, but i have no clue what how to run it, what to do, or anything..... i read tutorials, but they only start teaching at the point after you've installed php and had it running, and since i don't know how to run it, i don't even know what it looks like... so any help would be greatly appreciated 🙂 ..... this probably isn't a difficult question for masters like you 😉 lol... again, thanks for any help given.

thorpe

The easiest thing to install for a beginner to get started would be XAMPP (google for it). It will install a server (apache), PHP, and a MySql database (most everything you'll need) in one easy setup.

frederick213

cool... i installed it a little bit before i started the thread... but i don't really now how it works... i heard that it worked as a server for php so you can view php files online... but i saved a file as .php and tried viewing it online, but it didn't work. :glare:

ClarkF1

Did you save it in the htdocs folder of your XAMPP installation???

If you have you access the file by typing in http://localhost/xxx.php where xxx is the filename of course

frederick213

okay.. i see, but for some reason, this pops up... it says that

"Windows cannot open this file"
To open this file, windows needs to know what program created it... etc, etc.

What program or update do i need to do so it can open the file? and i do save the file that i try to view as a .php file right? (by the way, what i'm trying to view is that popluar "hello world" thing for beginner php programmers.

ClarkF1

Yep, you save it as a php file.

Try this one:

<?php

phpinfo();

?>

Copy that into notepad and save it as info.php in your htdocs folder and then try to view it using http://localhost/info.php - it should show lots of nicely formatted information regarding the php installation.

To execute php files you can only use the http (or https for a secure environment) method. Going to File->Open in your browser won't work.

If that doesn't work, try just http://localhost/ - it should take you to an XAMPP info page if you haven't done anything else since installing it with some information on security settings.

Make these changes and then try again.

Houdini

The htdoc folder in a standard install with the latest version of XAMPP will be located in c:\Porgram Files\xampp\htdocs that is where you place all your web documents hence htdocs (hypertext documents) and they can be both HTML or PHP but in order to view a PHP document it must be named with the extension of .php You will always access files in this folder by starting your browser and in the address bar typing http://localhost/AndTheNameOfYourFile or by typing http://theNameOfYourComputer/AndTheNameOfYourFileit is just like any other website except it is working on your own machine you can also use an ip and in the case of the localhost the address is http://127.0.0.1/AndTheNameOfYourFile

frederick213

alright... thanks so much all of you guys, it worked. just one question.... when i type http://localhost/, is it supposed to be in german or whatever that language it is?

Houdini

You should have the option when first run of selecting either english or german and from then on it should only open with whichever one you select.

frederick213

oh... how do i change it now that it's already german?