PHP Get Started

Install PHP

• Windows: download from windows.php.net or install a bundle like XAMPP or Laragon.
• macOS: brew install php
• Linux (Debian/Ubuntu): sudo apt install php-cli

Check the installation:

php --version

Run a script

Save code in hello.php and run it from the terminal:

<?php
echo "PHP version: " . (PHP_MAJOR_VERSION >= 8 ? "8 or newer" : "old") . "\n";
echo "Hello from hello.php!\n";

PHP version: 8 or newer
Hello from hello.php!

php hello.php

The built-in web server

PHP ships with a development server. In your project folder run:

php -S localhost:8000

Then open http://localhost:8000/hello.php in your browser. For production you'd use Nginx or Apache with PHP-FPM.

PHP inside HTML

PHP can be mixed with HTML — everything outside <?php ... ?> is sent as-is:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>
  <h1>Today is <?= date("l") ?></h1>
</body>
</html>

<?= ... ?> is short for <?php echo ... ?>.