<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<title>What do I need?</title>
</head>
<body><div class="manualnavbar" style="text-align: center;">
<div class="prev" style="text-align: left; float: left;"><a href="tutorial.html">A simple tutorial</a></div>
<div class="next" style="text-align: right; float: right;"><a href="tutorial.firstpage.html">Your first PHP-enabled page</a></div>
<div class="up"><a href="tutorial.html">A simple tutorial</a></div>
<div class="home"><a href="index.html">PHP Manual</a></div>
</div><hr /><div id="tutorial.requirements" class="section">
<div class="info"><h1 class="title">What do I need?</h1></div>
<p class="para">
In this tutorial we assume that your server has activated support
for PHP and that all files ending in <var class="filename">.php</var>
are handled by PHP. On most servers, this is the default extension
for PHP files, but ask your server administrator to be sure. If
your server supports PHP, then you do not need to do anything. Just
create your <var class="filename">.php</var> files, put them in your
web directory and the server will automatically parse them for you.
There is no need to compile anything nor do you need to install
any extra tools. Think of these PHP-enabled files as simple HTML
files with a whole new family of magical tags that let you do all
sorts of things.
</p>
<p class="para">
Let us say you want to save precious bandwidth and develop locally.
In this case, you will want to install a web server, such as
<a href="http://httpd.apache.org/" class="link external">» Apache</a>, and of course
<a href="http://www.php.net/downloads.php" class="link external">» PHP</a>. You will most likely
want to install a database as well, such as
<a href="http://dev.mysql.com/doc/" class="link external">» MySQL</a>.
</p>
<p class="para">
You can either install these individually or choose a simpler way. Our
manual has <a href="install.html" class="link">installation instructions for
PHP</a> (assuming you already have some web server set up). If
you have problems with installing PHP yourself, we would suggest you ask
your questions on our <a href="http://www.php.net/mailing-lists.php" class="link external">» installation
mailing list</a>. If you choose to go on the simpler route, then
<a href="http://wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AMP_packages" class="link external">» locate a pre-configured package</a>
for your operating system, which automatically installs all of these
with just a few mouse clicks. It is easy to setup a web server with PHP
support on any operating system, including MacOSX, Linux and Windows.
On Linux, you may find <a href="http://www.rpmfind.net/" class="link external">» rpmfind</a> and
<a href="http://rpm.pbone.net/" class="link external">» PBone</a> helpful for
locating RPMs. You may also want to visit <a href="http://www.apt-get.org/" class="link external">» apt-get</a> to find packages for Debian.
</p>
</div><hr /><div class="manualnavbar" style="text-align: center;">
<div class="prev" style="text-align: left; float: left;"><a href="tutorial.html">A simple tutorial</a></div>
<div class="next" style="text-align: right; float: right;"><a href="tutorial.firstpage.html">Your first PHP-enabled page</a></div>
<div class="up"><a href="tutorial.html">A simple tutorial</a></div>
<div class="home"><a href="index.html">PHP Manual</a></div>
</div></body></html>
