Tricia Ballad

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

To use your local computer to develop your Web site, you must install a Web server, PHP, and MySQL. PHP and MySQL are free to download and use. Installing the Web server After you set up the computer, you need to install a Web server. Your first step is deciding which Web server to install. The answer is almost always Apache, which offers the following advantages: It's free. It runs on a variety of operating systems. Apache runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS, FreeBSD, and most varieties of Unix. It's popular. Approximately 60 percent of Web sites on the Internet use Apache. This wouldn't be true if it didn't work well. Also, this means that a large group of users can provide help. It's reliable. When Apache is up and running, it should run as long as your computer runs. Emergency problems with Apache are rare. It's customizable. The open source license allows programmers to modify the Apache software, adding or modifying modules as needed to fit their own environment. It's secure. You can find free software that runs with Apache to make it into an SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) server. Security is an essential issue if you're using the site for e-commerce. Apache is automatically installed when you install most Linux distributions. All recent Macs come with Apache installed. However, you might need to install a newer version. Apache provides an installer for Windows that installs and configures Apache for you. Microsoft offers IIS (Internet Information Server), which is the second most popular Web server on the Internet, with approximately 27 percent of Web sites. Sun Microsystems offers a Web server, which serves less than 3 percent of the Internet. Other Web servers are available, but they have even smaller user bases. Installing MySQL MySQL is often already installed on Linux or Mac. Sometimes it is installed, but not activated. However, the installed version might be an older version, in which case you should install a newer version. You install and configure MySQL on Windows by using a Setup and Configuration Wizard. RPMs are available for installing MySQL on Linux. A PKG file is available for installing MySQL on Mac OS X. Software for managing your MySQL databases after MySQL is installed is available. One popular program for administering MySQL is phpMyAdmin, a utility program written in PHP. Installing PHP Along with MySQL, PHP is often already installed in Linux or the Mac OS. Sometimes it's installed but not activated. However, the installed version might be an older version, in which case you should install a newer version. PHP is available for Windows in a Zip file that just needs to be unzipped in the correct location. PHP is available for Linux in RPMs. You can obtain PHP for Mac OS in a PKG file. After installing PHP, you need to configure your Web server to process PHP code.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

SQL is almost English; it's made up largely of English words, put together into strings of words that sound similar to English sentences. In general (fortunately), you don't need to understand any arcane technical language to write SQL queries that work. The first word of each query is its name, which is an action word (a verb) that tells MySQL what you want to do. The query name is followed by words and phrases — some required and some optional — that tell MySQL how to perform the action. For instance, you always need to tell MySQL what to create, and you always need to tell it which table to insert data into or to select data from. The following is a typical SQL query. As you can see, it uses English words: SELECT lastName FROM Member This query retrieves all the last names stored in the table named Member. More complicated queries, such as the following, are less English-like: SELECT lastName,firstName FROM Member WHERE state="CA" AND city="Fresno" ORDER BY lastName This query retrieves all the last names and first names of members who live in Fresno and then puts them in alphabetical order by last name. Although this query is less English-like, it's still pretty clear. Here are some general points to keep in mind when constructing an SQL query, as illustrated in the preceding sample query: Capitalization: The case of the SQL words doesn't matter; for example, select is the same asSELECT, and from is the same as FROM, as far as MySQL is concerned. On the other hand, the case of the table names, column names, and other variable information does matter if your operating system is Unix or Linux. When you're using Unix or Linux, MySQL needs to match the column names exactly, so the case for the column names has to be correct — for example, lastname isn't the same as lastName. Windows, however, isn't as picky as Unix and Linux; from its point of view, lastname and lastNameare the same. Spacing: SQL words must be separated by one or more spaces. It doesn't matter how many spaces you use; you could just as well use 20 spaces or just 1 space. SQL also doesn't pay any attention to the end of the line. You can start a new line at any point in the SQL statement or write the entire statement on one line. Quotes: Notice that CA and Fresno are enclosed in double quotes (") in the preceding query. CA and Fresno are a series of characters called text strings or character strings. You're asking MySQL to compare the text strings in the SQL query with the text strings already stored in the database. When you compare numbers (such as integers) stored in numeric columns, you don't enclose the numbers in quotes.