How to practice php with apache web server for windows

If you are a student or just need to install the server on your computer to learn PHP coding you have to manually configure Apache, PHP, and MySQL on your system in use with the PHP, MySQL, and development functionality. Open source software such as WordPress, Joomla, and many others can be installed on local machine offline. Setting it up on your home computer means you can experiment, make mistakes and stop work whenever you want because the site is accessible only to you on your personal computer. Here you will learn how to install everything without having to buy anything.

If you want to learn PHP you need to install everything (Php, Apache, MySQL) manually. Or use software such as Ampps or Xammp. In a few steps, you can install this software that will simulate a web server on your computer, and you’ll have open source software like WordPress up and running. You can install Xammp or Ammps software packages on a Windows, Linux or Mac computer. Not only is it free, but it’s also really easy to use and install.

Practice PHP with apache web server for windows

Lets first see what are these package about. In simple terms, Apache HTTPD is the software that turns your computer into a web server and to allow it to “serve” content in the form of web pages, images, and other content you’d find on a website when you use.

MySQL is the database server. Before web page consisted of actual files for each page of the site like index.html, contact.html, etc. Each of these files was sitting in your web server’s hard drive and had to be downloaded individually. Now with more modern sites, and especially with WordPress, each page is created more dynamically because the majority of the content is actually stored in a database.

Also read: A look at some of the Beneficial PHP Tips

PHP and Perl are two programming languages. PHP is the language that open source like WordPress is written in and a language that was made for scripting web pages. Perl is a very succinct and powerful programming language and is often included in WordPress code, it can be interpreted and executed on your local computer.

Installing Everything Manually

To install all package manually you need to download all of them from their respective website as shown below.

Apache

Apache is the HTTP (Web) server software. http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi

PHP

PHP is the general-purpose scripting language, especially suited for Web development, that we will be using. http://www.php.net/downloads.php

MySQL Server

MySQL is the database server/software we will be using. http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.0.html#win32

Install all in one package- XAMMP

There’s an installation package that will give you all four of them called XAMPP. XAMPP has these four components: Apache HTTPD (web server), MySQL (database engine) and PHP and Perl (programming language engines). Each of these can be downloaded and installed separately, but the XAMPP package does it all in one go so you’re sure to have the right versions.