The document provides instructions for installing and configuring PHP and related modules on an Ubuntu system using apt-get. It demonstrates basic PHP syntax like variables, if/else statements, and for loops to output simple dynamic web pages. It instructs the user to create an index.php file in the /var/www directory to experiment with PHP and provides examples of concatenating strings and using URLs to pass parameters between files.

1. >_ Things Lab
PHP

2. First instructions
The standard syntax is:
sudo command [parameters] [| more]
Update the image to the last packages
sudo apt-get update
Search for the PHP module
sudo apt-cache search php5 | more
Install a Daemon (Server)
sudo apt-get install package-name

3. Install the PHP Daemon
Install the PHP (Server and CLI)
sudo apt-get install php5 php5-cli
Install the MySQL module for PHP
sudo apt-get install php5-mysql
Restart the webserver Apache 2
sudo service apache2 restart (or reboot)
If you want to find all the PHP modules
sudo apt-cache search php- |more

4. VI, the best editor
i to enter in edit mode
ESC button to exit from edit mode
to save the a file and exit from VI:
(ESC button) :wq
man vi (is the manual, or check in internet),
btu always http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTFM
If you are lazy (and lamer, wiki it) use geany

5. Check the Installation
In the virtual machine, open in the browser
http://localhost/

6. Open the web folder
In the virtual machine, open in the
file browser (PCMan File manager)
/var/www/html/
index.html (static page)
index.php (dynamic page, we will see later)

7. From the terminal
cd /var/www/
rm index.html
vi index.php

8. A simple program
<? // inform the web server that now the page is dynamic
// the value $ before a name indicate a variable
// ; used to end the instruction (like in C language)
$a = 20; // Assign to a variable the value 20
If ($a == 10) { // if... then... else structure
print “the value of a is 10”;
} else {
print “the value of a different than 10”;
}
// the next line, indicate that the dynamic part is finished
?>

9. A simple (2) program
<?
// Now we use a loop structure, is called FOR
for ($i = 0; $i < 100; $i++) {
print “ i = ”; // a simple print
print “ i = ”.”<BR>”; // simple concatenation of two strings
print “ i = ”.$i.”<BR>”; // concatenation with a string/number
}
/* (Comments with more than one line!!)
Open PHP manual http://php.net/manual/en/
*/
?>

10. Now... is getting serious...
Try to concatenate and print the following string:
<A HREF=”program.php?a=10”>test num. 10</A>
You have 20 minutes to try, finished the exercise we try to
interact with two or more php files.
Do you know how to pass parameters in a URL?