09. Web Development

Message flashing in a PHP web application refers to the technique that makes certain messages popup on the browser window for the user to receive application’s feedback. To be able to give the user a meaningful feedback to his interactions is an important design principle, that gives a better user experience. In a PHP web application, […]

In PHP, PRG stands for “Post/Redirect/Get”. It is a commonly used technique that is designed to prevent the resubmission of a form after it’s been submitted. You can easily implement this technique in PHP to avoid duplicate form submissions. Usually a HTML form sends data to the server with the POST method. The server script […]

In PHP, it is important to ensure that the input data is sanitized properly by removed any undesired characters before it is processed by the server side code. Usually, the users input their data to a PHP web application through a HTML form. If the form data consists of any undesired characters, it may prove […]

The provision of sending emails is one the commonly required features of a typical PHP powered web application. You would like to send emails containing notifications, updates and other communications to your registered users, through your PHP application itself, instead of a different mail service. You can add this capability to your PHP application by […]

From PHP version 7 onwards, the session_start() function accepts an array of options to override the session configuration directives set in “php.ini”. The [session] session in “php.ini” defines the default values of various options. The options, if provided, are in the form of an associative array of options that will override the currently set session configuration directives. […]

A web session is the time duration between the time a user establishes connection with a server and the time the connection is terminated. Along with the cookies, the session variables make the data accessible across the various pages of an entire website. During a session, the website maintains information about the user’s actions and […]

The worldwide web is powered by HTTP protocol, which is a stateless protocol. The mechanism of Cookies helps the server maintain the information of previous requests. PHP transparently supports HTTP cookies. This chapter will teach you how to set cookies, how to access them and how to delete them. The Anatomy of a Cookie Cookies […]

One of the common features required in a typical PHP web application is the provision of letting the user upload files. Uploading files from a client is very easy in PHP. In this chapter, we shall learn how to use PHP script for the file upload process. The process of uploading a file follows these […]

Since PHP is mostly used for web application development, the data sent by the browser client is mainly with the GET and POST types of HTTP request methods. The HTTP protocol also defines other methods for sending the request to the server. They are PUT, DELETE, HEAD and OPTIONS (in addition to GET and POST […]

You can include the content of a PHP file into another PHP file before the server executes it. There are two PHP functions which can be used to included one PHP file into another PHP file. This is a strong point of PHP which helps in creating functions, headers, footers, or elements that can be […]