What is PHP?

[Jeffrey]

A short form of PHP is Hypertext Preprocessor which is an open source, server-side, HTML embedded scripting language used for creating web dynamic Web pages.
In an HTML document the PHP script (similar syntax to that of Perl or C ) is enclosed within special PHP tags. Where as the PHP is completely embedded within the tags, the author can jump between HTML and PHP (similar to ASP and Cold Fusion) instead of having to rely on heavy amounts of code to output HTML. And, because PHP is executed on the server, the client cannot view the PHP code. PHP can perform any task that any CGI program can do, but its strength lies in its compatibility with many types of databases. Also, PHP can talk across networks using IMAP, SNMP, NNTP, POP3, or HTTP.