What Is PHP?

PHP is a server-side scripting language designed for web development. Code runs on the server and produces HTML (or JSON, or any other output) that's sent to the browser — the visitor never sees the PHP source itself.

<?php
echo "Hello, world!";

A PHP file mixes HTML with PHP code inside <?php ... ?> tags. Every statement ends with a semicolon ;, and files conventionally use the .php extension. PHP powers a huge share of the web — from WordPress sites to large applications built on frameworks like Laravel.