Internet Programming

(CoSc3031)

Internet Programming
(Server Side Scripting )Using PHP

February 17, 2021

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Web Engineering –Server Side Technology
 Web Engineering aims to bring Web-based system
development under control, minimize risks and improve
quality, maintainability, and scalability of Web applications.
 Web Engineering incorporate technology like client and
server sides.
 Server Side Technology used to build and develop Web
Systems and Applications which helps to interact with more
than two tiers.

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Overview of Server Side Technologies
 Scripts (programs) are stored on the server and are
executed on request (from a client).
 Result of execution is sent to the client in the form of
HTML.
 The server side script/program itself is never returned to
the client!
 My be written in a wide variety of programming/scripting
languages.
 php, asp, c/c++, perl, java, …
 Can perform several powerful operations.

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Server-Side Scripting

 A “script” is a collection of program or sequence of

instructions that is interpreted or carried out by another
program rather than by the computer processor.
Classified as:
 Client-side Scripts
 Server-side Scripts
 In server-side scripting, (such as PHP, ASP) the script
is processed by the server Like: Apache, ColdFusion,
ISAPI and Microsoft's IIS on Windows.
 Client-side scripting such as JavaScript runs on the
web browser.
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Common Features
 All server-side frameworks share a common set of
features
 Read data submitted by the user
 Generate HTML dynamically based on user input
 Determine information about the client browser
 Access database systems
 Exploit the HTTP protocol

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Server-Side Scripting (cont’d)

 Advantages of Server-Side Scripting

 Dynamic content
 Computational capability
 Database and file system access
 Network access (from the server only)
 Built-in libraries and functions
 Known platform for execution (as opposed to client-side,
where the platform is uncontrolled.)
 Security improvements

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Introduction to PHP

• PHP is perfectly suited for Web development and can be

embedded directly into the HTML code.
• The PHP syntax is very similar to JavaScript, Perl and C.
• PHP is often used together with Apache (web server) on
various operating systems. It also supports ISAPI and can
be used with Microsoft's IIS on Windows.
• PHP supports many databases (MySQL, Informix, Oracle,
Sybase, Solid, PostgreSQL, Generic ODBC, etc.)

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PHP features
 A server side scripting interpreted language
 Open source(Free!)
 Fairly easy but quite powerful!
 Can be embedded within HTML code
 Object Orientation supported
 Supports (almost) all major databases
 Run Faster

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PHP – Language Basics
 Syntax
 PHP code should enclosed within:
<?php and ?>
So that it is distinguished from HTML.
 Hence, the PHP parser only parses code which is in between <?
php and ?>
 PHP code can be embedded in HTML

Example:
<p>This is going to be ignored.</p>
<?php echo 'While this is going to be parsed.'; ?>
<p>This will also be ignored.</p>

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Language Basics (cont’d)

A more complex example:

<?php if ($expression) { ?>

<strong>This is true.</strong>
<?php
} else {
?>
<strong>This is false.</strong>
<?php
}
?>

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Data types
 Boolean (bool or boolean)
 Simplest of all
 Can be either TRUE or FALSE
 Integer (int or integer)
 Hold integer values (signed or unsigned)
 Floating point (float or double or real)
 Hold floating point values
 String (string)
 Hold strings of characters within either ‘ or ‘’
 Escaping of special characters can be done using \
 Ex. “this is a string”, ‘this is another string’, “yet \”another\”
one”

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Data types (cont’d)
 Array
 Collection of values of the same data type
 Object
 Instance of a class
 Resource
 Hold a reference to an external resource created by some functions
 NULL
 Represents that a variable has no value
 A variable is considered to be NULL if
 it has been assigned the constant NULL.
 it has not been set to any value yet.
 it has been unset()

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Variables
 Variables in PHP are represented by a dollar sign followed
by the name of the variable.
 The variable name is case-sensitive.
 A valid variable name starts with a letter or underscore,
followed by any number of letters, numbers, or underscores.
 PHP is not strongly typed
 No variable declaration ( implicit )
 To create a variable, just assign some value to it!

Example:
$myNum = 5; //declares and assignes 5 to the variable $myNum

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Variables (cont’d)
 Example

<?php
$var = 'Bob';
$Var = 'Joe';
echo "$var, $Var"; // outputs "Bob, Joe"
$4site = 'not yet'; // invalid; starts with a number
$_4site = 'not yet'; //valid; starts with an underscore
$täyte = 'mansikka'; // valid; 'ä' is (Extended) ASCII 228.
?>

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Variables (cont’d)

 Referencing

$var1 = “some string”;

$var2 = &$var1;
$var2 = “another string”

echo $var1; //another string

echo $var2; //another string

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Variables (cont’d)
 Variables within double quoted strings (“”) are parsed
Example
$name = “Abebe”;
$message = “Hello $name”;
echo $message; //Hello Abebe

 Variables within single quoted strings (‘’) are not parsed!

Example
$name = “Abebe”;
$message = ‘Hello $name’;
echo $message; //Hello $name

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Variables (cont’d)
 Array variables
 Can be created using the array() construct.
Syntax: array( [ key => ] value, … )
key : can be an integer or a string
value : can be any value
Example
<?php
$arr = array( "foo", "bar” );

echo $arr[0]; // foo

echo $arr[1];    // bar
?>

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Variables (cont’d)
Example
<?php
$arr = array("foo" => "bar", 12 => true);

echo $arr["foo"]; // bar

echo $arr[12];    // 1
?>

 Floats in key are truncated to integer.

 There are no different indexed and associative array types in PHP;
there is only one array type, which can both contain integer and
string indices.

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Variables (cont’d)
 The value in an array can be anything (even an array)

Example
<?php
$arr = array("somearray" => array(6 => 5, 13 => 9, "a" => 42));

echo $arr["somearray"][6];    // 5

echo $arr["somearray"][13];   // 9
echo $arr["somearray"]["a"];  // 42
?>

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Variables (cont’d)
 If you do not specify a key for a given value, then the maximum of the
integer indices is taken, and the new key will be that maximum value +
1.
 If no integer indices exist yet, the key will be 0 (zero).
 If you specify a key that already has a value assigned to it, that value
will be overwritten.
Example
<?php
// This array is the same as ...
array(5 => 43, 32, 56, "b" => 12);

// ...this array
array(5 => 43, 6 => 32, 7 => 56, "b" => 12);
?>

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Variables (cont’d)
 Creating/modifying with square-bracket syntax
 You can also modify an existing array by explicitly setting values
in it
Syntax:
$arr[key] = value;
$arr[] = value;
// key may be an integer or string
// value may be any value
 If $arr doesn't exist yet, it will be created
 To change a certain value, just assign a new value to an element
specified with its key.
 If you want to remove a key/value pair, you need to unset() it

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Variables (cont’d)
Example
<?php
$arr = array(5 => 1, 12 => 2);

$arr[] = 56;    // same as $arr[13] = 56;

$arr["x"] = 42; // adds a new element to the array with key "x"
        
unset($arr[5]); // removes the element from the array

unset($arr);    // This deletes the whole array

?>

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Variables (cont’d)
 To print the content of an array, use the print_r() function.
 Syntax: print_r($arr);
Example
<?php
$array = array(1, 2, 3, 4, 5);
print_r($array);
?>
Output: Array ( [0] => 1
   [1] => 2
    [2] => 3
    [3] => 4
    [4] => 5
)

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Variables (cont’d)
 Strings
 Three types of string literals
 Single quoted
 $str1 = ‘some string’;
 Double quoted
 $str2 = “some other string”;
 Heredoc
 $str3 = <<<EOD
Example of string
spanning multiple lines
using heredoc syntax.
EOD;

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Variables (cont’d)
 Character escaping
 If the string is enclosed in double-quotes ("), PHP understands
more escape sequences for special characters:

sequence meaning
\n linefeed
\r carriage return
\t horizontal tab
\\ backslash
\$ dollar sign
\" double-quote

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Variables (cont’d)
 Variable parsing
variables within double quoted strings are parsed.

Example
<?php
$soft_drink = ‘coka';
echo "$soft_drink's taste is great"; // works
echo "He drank some $soft_drinks";   // won't work
echo "He drank some ${soft_drink}s"; // works
echo "He drank some {$soft_drink}s"; // works
?>

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Variables (cont’d)
 String concatenation
 Use the . (dot) operator
Example
<?php
$var1 = “Today is “;
$message = $var1 . date(“d-m-Y”); //Today is 28-12-2007
?>
 Indexing strings
 $str[index]
 String index starts with 0 (similar to arrays)
 For a list of string related functions, refer to the Official PHP
Reference Manual
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Output statements
 Types of output: echo, print
 Using the function echo
 Syntax: echo $var or echo string_constant
 Using short tags
 Syntax: <?= $var ?>
 Using heredoc
 Syntax:
echo <<<LABEL
….
LABEL;
* LABEL must be placed in the first column of a new line.
* Special characters, like “, need not be escaped

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Input
 Input to server side scripts comes from clients through
forms.
 Two methods of sending data: GET & POST
 GET
 Search queries and small amounts of data
 Also generated when a user clicks on a link
 Non secure (displayed in address bar)
 POST
 Large and secure data
 The default method for HTML forms is GET

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Input (cont’d)
 To access form field values in PHP, use the built-in PHP
arrays: $_GET and $_POST respectively for GET and
POST request methods
 The names of the form fields will be used as indices in the
respective arrays.
 For example, to access the value of an input box named
‘first_name’ in a form whose method is POST, we’d
write:
$_POST[ ‘first_name’ ]
 If the form method is GET,
$_GET[ ‘first_name’ ]

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Input (cont’d)
 Example:
//login.html
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

<body>
<form method=‘POST’ action=“login.php”>
User Name: <input type="text" name="username" ><br>
Password: <input type="password" name="password"><br>
<input type="submit" value="Login">
</form>

</body>
</html>

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Input (cont’d)
//login.php
<?php
$username = $_POST[ ‘username’ ];
$password = $_POST[ ‘password’ ];

if($username == “user” && $password == “pass”){

//login successful
header( ‘Location: home.php’ );
exit();
}else{
//login failed
header( ‘Location: login.html’ );
exit();
}
} ?>

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Input (cont’d)
 In effect, all form data will be available to PHP scripts
through the appropriate array: $_GET or $_POST.

 Another way of getting input from client can be using

cookies.
 Cookie is information stored on the client by the server.
 Cookies stored on a client associated to a particular server
are sent to the server every time that same client computer
requests for a page.
 Cookies are often used to identify a user.

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Input (cont’d)
 To create a cookies, use the setcookie() function.
 Cookies must be sent before any output from your script.
 This function must be called before any other output in the PHP file, i.e
before <html>, any spaces, …
 To retrieve a cookie value, use the $_COOKIE array with the
name of the cookie as index.
 Ex.
<html><body>
<?php if( isset( $_COOKIE[ “uname” ] ) )
echo “Welcome “ . $_COOKIE[ “uname” ] . “! <br> “;
else
echo “Cookie not set <br>”;
?>

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Input Variables more
 include / require
 Format: include “file”; or require “file”;
 includes and evaluates the specified file.
 include generates a warning while require generates a fatal
error. Otherwise, both structures behave the same way.

 include_once / require_once
 similar in behavior to include / require with the only difference
being that if the code from a file has already been included /
required, it will not be included /required again.

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Input variables
 Example
vars.php
<?php

$color = 'green';
$fruit = 'apple';

?>

test.php
<?php

echo "A $color $fruit"; // A

include 'vars.php';

echo "A $color $fruit"; // A green apple

?>

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More array of variables
 $ _GET[]
 $ _POST[]
 $ _COOKIE[]
 $_REQUEST[]
 $ _SESSION[]
 $_SERVER[]
 $_FILES[]

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Functions in PHP
 Functions are at the heart of a well-organized script and will
make your code easy to read and reuse.
 In PHP, functions come in two flavors – those built-in to the
language, and those that you define yourself.
 User defined functions may be declared as follows:
<?php
function function_name($arg_1, $arg_2, ..., $arg_n)
{
 //  function body
   [return $retval;]
}
?>
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Conditional functions
<?php
$defined= true;

// We can't call f1() from here since it doesn't exist yet, but we can
call f2()

f2();

if ($defined) {
 function f1() {
   echo "I don't exist until program execution reaches me.\n";
 }
}

// Now we can safely call f1() since $defined evaluated to true

if ($defined) f1();

function f2() {
 echo "I exist immediately upon program start.\n";
}
?>

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Functions within functions
<?php
function f1(){
 function f2(){
   echo "I don't exist until f1() is called.\n";
 }
}

/* We can't call f2() yet since it doesn't exist. */

f1();

/* Now we can call f2(), f1()'s processing has made it

accessible. */

f2();
?>

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Functions (cont’d)
 Recursive functions
Example
<?php
function recursion($a){
   if ($a < 20) {
       echo "$a \r\n";
       recursion($a + 1);
   }
}
?>
 All functions in PHP have the global scope - they can be
called outside a function even if they were defined inside
and vice versa.
 PHP does not support function overloading.
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Function arguments
 PHP supports passing arguments by value (the default),
passing by reference, and default argument values.
 To pass an argument to a function by reference, you can
prepend an ampersand (&) to the argument name in the
function definition.
Example
function getDate( &$arg1 ){
$arg1 = date(“d-m-Y”);
}
…
getDate( $date );
echo $date;
…

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Function arguments (cont’d)
 To define an argument with a default value, the default
value can be assigned to the argument in the function
definition.
function sample( $arg1, $arg2 = “initial value” ){
…
}

when calling:
sample($var1, $var2);
sample($var1); //second argument takes default value

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Function arguments (cont’d)
 PHP allows you to use arrays and special type NULL as default
values
 The default value must be a constant expression, not a variable,
a class member or a function call.
 Note that when using default arguments, any defaults should be
on the right side of any non-default arguments; otherwise,
things will not work as expected.
Example
<?php
function makeyogurt($type = "acidophilus", $flavour){
   return "Making a bowl of $type $flavour.\n";
}
echo makeyogurt("raspberry");   // won't work, error
?>

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Returning values
 Values are returned by using the optional return statement.
 Any type may be returned, including lists and objects.
 This causes the function to end its execution immediately
and pass control back to the line from which it was called.
 To return a reference from a function, you have to use the
reference operator & in both the function declaration and
when assigning the returned value to a variable

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Returning values
Example

<?php
function &returns_reference(){
   return $someref;
}

$newref =& returns_reference();

?>

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Arrays in PHP
 An array is a data structure that stores one or more similar type
of values in a single value.
 The array()function is usually used when you want to
create a new array and populate it with more than one
element, all at the same time.
 There are three different kind of arrays:
 Numeric array − An array with a numeric index. Values are stored and
accessed in linear fashion. array(value1,value 2, …value n);
 Associative array − An array with strings as index. This stores element
values in association with key values .array(“key1”’value1” ,
“key2””value2”…”keyn””valuen”);
 Multidimensional array − An array containing one or more arrays and
values are accessed using multiple indices. array( array( ) );
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Array example 1
 Example
…
$arr = array(“name”=>”Abebe”, “dept”=>”CS”, “year”=>3,
“cgpa”=>3.5);
foreach( $arr as $key=>$value ){
echo $key . “ = “ . $value . “<br>”;
}
//output
name = Abebe
dept = CS
year = 3
cgpa = 3.5
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Arrays Example 2 (Indexed array)
<html> <body>
<?php
/* First method to create array. */
$numbers = array( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5);
foreach( $numbers as $value ) {
echo "Value is $value <br />“; }
/* Second method to create array. */
$numbers[0] = "one"; $numbers[1] = "two"; $numbers[2] = "three";
$numbers[3] = "four"; $numbers[4] = "five";
foreach( $numbers as $value ) {
echo "Value is $value <br />"; }
?>
</body> </html>

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Arrays Example 3 (Associative array)
<html> <body>
<?php
/* First method to associate create array. */
$salaries = array("mohammad" => 2000, "qadir" => 1000, "zara" => 500);
echo "Salary of mohammad is ". $salaries['mohammad'] . "<br />";
echo "Salary of qadir is ". $salaries['qadir']. "<br />";
echo "Salary of zara is ". $salaries['zara']. "<br />";
/* Second method to create array. */
$salaries['mohammad'] = "high"; $salaries['qadir'] = "medium"; $salaries['zara'] =
"low";
echo "Salary of mohammad is ". $salaries['mohammad'] . "<br />";
echo "Salary of qadir is ". $salaries['qadir']. "<br />";
echo "Salary of zara is ". $salaries['zara']. "<br />";
?> </body> </html>
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Arrays Example 4 (Multidimensional array)
<html> <body>
<?php
$marks = array( "mohammad" => array ( "physics" => 35, "maths" => 30, "chemistry"
=> 39 ), “helen" => array ( "physics" => 30, "maths" => 32, "chemistry" => 29 ),
"zara" => array ( "physics" => 31, "maths" => 22, "chemistry" => 39 ) );
/* Accessing multi-dimensional array values */
echo "Marks for mohammad in physics : " ;
echo $marks['mohammad']['physics'] . "<br />";
echo "Marks for helen in maths : ";
echo $marks[helen ']['maths'] . "<br />";
echo "Marks for zara in chemistry : " ;
echo $marks['zara']['chemistry'] . "<br />";
?>
</body> </html>
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Arrays Example 5…
 The general syntax of the foreach statement is:
foreach ( arrayname as variable ) {
//Statements to repeat }

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Arrays Example 6…
 The general syntax of the foreach statement is:
foreach ( arrayname as variable ) {
//Statements to repeat }

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Array related built-in methods
 To verify if a particular index exists in an associative
array, use the isset() function.
 To sort array elements as ascending and descending
ordered use sort(), asort(), ksort() and rsort(),
arsort(),krsort()
• count() –to count number of array elements
• sizeof()- to know the size of arrays
• array_push()- to add elements
• array-combine()- to combine different array elements

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Server side State Maintenance -cookies
Some of the state maintenance principles in php are:
 Cookies-user controlled
 Cookies are text files stored on the client computer and they are kept of use
tracking purpose. PHP transparently supports HTTP cookies.
 PHP provided setcookie() function to set a cookie.
setcookie(name, value, expire, path, domain, security);
<?php
setcookie("name", "John Watkin", time()+3600, "/","", 0);
setcookie("age", "36", time()+3600, "/", "", 0);
?>
 Accessing Cookies :<?php echo $_COOKIE["name"]. "<br />";
 You can use isset() function to check if a cookie is set or not.
if( isset($_COOKIE["name"])) echo "Welcome " . $_COOKIE["name"] . "<br />";
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Other state information managements
 Sessions –server controlled
 Hidden form fields- handling form elements
 Query strings- handling database queries and operations

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Session
 A way of preserving certain data across subsequent visits.
 Enables us to build more customized applications and increase the
appeal of our web site.
 A visitor accessing our web site is assigned a unique id, called
session id. This is either stored in a cookie on the user side or is
propagated in the URL.
 To read/write from/to the session, it should first be initialized by
calling the function session_start()
 The function will create a new session if one doesn’t exist already.
If a session already exists, all data in it will be available to the
current script.
 Make use of isset() function to check if session variable is already
set or not.
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Session (cont’d)
 Data in the session can be accessed through the built-in
array $_SESSION using the name of the session variable
as index.

 To store data in the session, either:

 use the function session_register()
 or simply create a new element in the $_SESSION array.

 The function session_register() has the following format:

bool session_register( $var [, $var2 …] )

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Starting and Checking Session
<?php
session_start();
if( isset( $_SESSION['counter'] ) )
{ $_SESSION['counter'] += 1; }
else { $_SESSION['counter'] = 1; }
$msg = "You have visited this page ". $_SESSION['counter'];
$msg .= "in this session."; ?>
<html> <head> <title>Setting up a PHP session</title> </head>
<body>
<?php echo ( $msg ); ?>
</body> </html>

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Session (cont’d)

<?php
// Use of session_register() is deprecated
$barney = "A big purple dinosaur.";
session_register("barney");

//Use of $_SESSION
$_SESSION["zim"] = "An invader from another
planet.";

echo “The invader : “ . $_SESSION[“zim”];

echo “Title : “ . $_SESSION[“barney”];
?>

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Session (cont’d) – Some functions
 session_destroy Destroys all data registered to a session
 session_id Get and/or set the current session id
 session_is_registered Find out whether a global variable is
registered in a session
 session_regenerate_id Update the current session id with a newly
generated one
 session_register Register one or more global variables with the
current session
 session_start Initialize session data
 session_unregister Unregister a global variable from the current
session
 session_unset Free all session variables, unset session variable
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PHP login and logout with session
 Login :Php login script is used to provide the authentication for our web pages.
the Script executes after submitting the user login button.
<?php
ob_start();
session_start();
?>
 Logout :It will erase the session data.
<?php
session_start();
unset($_SESSION["username"]); unset($_SESSION["password"]);
echo 'You have cleaned session';
header('Refresh: 2; URL = login.php'); ?>

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Database connectivity in PHP
 MySQL is a free and open source database that has a lot
of users especially for web applications. It can be
downloaded from internet freely.
 Whichever database you’re using, the steps to interact
with a database are similar:
 Connect to the database.
 Send an SQL query that contains instructions for the database
software.
 If you retrieved data from the database, process the data.
 Close the connection to the database.

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MySQL functions
 MySQL is an open-source database management system that
well integrates with PHP.
 PHP provides several functions that allow us to work with
MySQL databases.
 In order to access data in a database,
 Connect to the host machine on which the database server is
running
 Select the database with which you want to work with
 Issue queries via SQL statements
 Iterate and use the result set, if any
 For all of the above functions as well as many others, PHP
provides many handy functions.
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MySQL functions (cont’d)
 To connect to the database host
resource mysql_connect ( [string server [, string username
[, string password [, bool new_link [, int
client_flags]]]]] )

server : name/IP of the machine on which the db server

is running
username : used for login to the database server
password : >>
new_link : If a second call is made to mysql_connect() with the same arguments,
no new link will be established, but instead, the link identifier of the already opened link
will be returned. The new_link parameter modifies this behavior and makes
mysql_connect() always open a new link, even if mysql_connect() was called before
with the same parameters.
client_flags : MYSQL_CLIENT_SSL, MYSQL_CLIENT_COMPRESS,
MYSQL_CLIENT_IGNORE_SPACE or MYSQL_CLIENT_INTERACTIVE

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MySQL functions (cont’d)
 To select a database
 mysql_select_db( string db_name )
 To query a database
 mysql_query( string sql)
 To iterate a result set
 array mysql_fetch_array( resource result_set )
 To get the number of rows in a result set
 mysql_num_rows( resource result_set )
 To close a connection to a database server
 mysql_close()

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