Editing PHP (section)

=== Early history ===
PHP development began in 1993<ref name="Krill-2013" /> when [[Rasmus Lerdorf]] wrote several [[Common Gateway Interface]] (CGI) programs in [[C-programming|C]],<ref name="Lerdorf-2012">{{cite web | url = https://twitter.com/rasmus/status/226405807305138176 | title = I wonder why people keep writing that PHP was ever written in Perl. It never was. #php | last = Lerdorf | first = Rasmus | publisher = Twitter | date = 2012-07-20 | access-date = 2014-09-04}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url = http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail3298.html | title = PHP on Hormones | format = mp3 | last = Lerdorf | first = Rasmus | publisher = The Conversations Network | date = 2007-04-26 | access-date = 2009-06-22 | archive-date = 2019-01-06 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190106230504/http://web.archive.org/web/20130729204354id_/http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail3298.html | url-status = dead }}</ref> which he used to maintain his [[personal homepage]]. He extended them to work with [[web form]]s and to communicate with [[database]]s, and called this implementation "Personal Home Page/Forms Interpreter" or PHP/FI.

An example of the early PHP [[Syntax (programming languages)|syntax]]:<ref>{{cite web|last=Lerdorf|first=Rasmus|year=2007|title=Slide 3|url=http://talks.php.net/show/mysql07key/3|access-date=2009-06-22|work=slides for 'PHP on Hormones' talk|publisher=The PHP Group}}</ref>

<syntaxhighlight lang="html">
<!--include /text/header.html-->

<!--getenv HTTP_USER_AGENT-->
<!--if substr $exec_result Mozilla-->
  Hey, you are using Netscape!<p>
<!--endif-->

<!--sql database select * from table where user='$username'-->
<!--ifless $numentries 1-->
  Sorry, that record does not exist<p>
<!--endif exit-->
  Welcome <!--$user-->!<p>
  You have <!--$index:0--> credits left in your account.<p>

<!--include /text/footer.html-->
</syntaxhighlight>

PHP/FI could be used to build simple, [[dynamic web application]]s. To accelerate [[software bug|bug]] reporting and improve the code, Lerdorf initially announced the release of PHP/FI as "Personal Home Page Tools (PHP Tools) version 1.0" on the [[Usenet]] discussion group ''comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi'' on 8 June 1995.<ref name="Lerdorf-1995">{{cite web|url= https://groups.google.com/group/comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi/msg/cc7d43454d64d133?pli=1 |title=Announce: Personal Home Page Tools (PHP Tools)|last=Lerdorf|first=Rasmus|date=June 8, 1995|access-date=7 June 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite newsgroup | title = Announce: Personal Home Page Tools (PHP Tools) | author = Lerdorf, Rasmus | date = 1995-06-08 | newsgroup = comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi | url = https://groups.google.com/group/comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi/msg/cc7d43454d64d133 | access-date = 2006-09-17}}</ref> This release included basic functionality such as [[Local variable#Local variables in Perl|Perl-like variables]], form handling, and the ability to embed [[HTML]]. By this point, the [[syntax]] had changed to resemble that of [[Perl]], but was simpler, more limited, and less consistent.<ref name="php.net-3" /><ref name="The PHP Group" />

Early PHP was never intended to be a new [[Programming language theory|programming language]]; rather, it grew organically, with Lerdorf noting in retrospect: "I don't know how to stop it [...] there was never any intent to write a programming language [...] I have absolutely no idea how to write a programming language [...] I just kept adding the next logical step on the way."<ref name="Rasmus Lerdorf-2003">{{cite web|title = Rasmus Lerdorf, Senior Technical Yahoo: PHP, Behind the Mic|date = 2003-11-19|url =http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail58.html|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130728125152/http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail58.html|archive-date = 2013-07-28}}</ref> A development team began to form and, after months of work and [[Beta development stage|beta]] testing, officially released PHP/FI 2 in November 1997.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Alshetwi |first1=A.B. |last2=Rahmat |first2=R. A. A. O. |last3=Borhan |first3=M. N. |last4=Ismael |first4=S. |last5=Ali |first5=A. |last6=Irtema |first6=H. I. M. |last7=Alfakhria |first7=A. Y. |date=2018 |title=Web-Based Expert System for Optimizing of Traffic Road in Developing Countries |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326727672 |access-date=13 Feb 2024}}</ref>

The fact that PHP was not originally designed, but instead was developed organically has led to inconsistent naming of functions and inconsistent ordering of their parameters.<ref>{{cite web|title=Problems with PHP|url=http://toykeeper.net/soapbox/php_problems/|access-date=20 December 2010}}</ref> In some cases, the function names were chosen to match the lower-level libraries which PHP was "wrapping",<ref>{{cite web|url=http://news.php.net/php.internals/70950 |title=php.internals: Re: Function name consistency |website=news.php.net |date=2013-12-28 |access-date=2014-02-09}}</ref> while in some very early versions of PHP the length of the function names was used internally as a [[hash function]], so names were chosen to improve the distribution of [[hash values]].<ref name="Rasmus Lerdorf-2013">{{cite newsgroup |title=Re: Flexible function naming |author=[[Rasmus Lerdorf]] |date=Dec 16, 2013 |newsgroup=php.internals |url=http://news.php.net/php.internals/70691 |access-date=December 26, 2013}}</ref>