Hiya,

Ok, I really need help now.
I want to learn Php programming.
I use windows but I guess the Php scripts I write will be running on Unix/Linux since most webservers of this world are Uniz/linux.

Now, my question is :

Since there are 2 Php versions (one for Windows and one for Unix/Linux) then will that cause any trouble ?
I mean, the tutorials out there, is there a windows tutorial version and a Unix/Linux tutorial version ?
If I read the Windows tutorials and the source codes from it then will they work in webservers under Unix/Linux and vice-versa ?

Frankly, I am stuck !
I do a search on google and many websites come-up and one says do this and another says do that.
So, what should I do ?
Where do you recommend I go to download and install Php ?
I know, I can always use my webhost's server to upload the Php codes and experiment there but that would mean me losing a lot of band-width while "experimenting" and that's why I preferred to download and install Php on my own computer (Windows) but I am worried that the codes that will work on Windows (my computer) might not work on Unix/Linux (my website).
Actually, I can't afford to learn 2 versions of Php (one WIndows and one Unix/Linux) because it is hard enough to learn one version (syntax) in the first-place.
So, what do you all suggest ?
I definietly need help here as I am totally stuck and don't know what to do.

Two versions of PHP is new to me. PHP is embedded within your HTML pages, so the server processes it and spits out the equivalent HTML (in a nutshell). There is only one version of PHP; as long as a server (Windows, Unix, Linux, Mac, etc.) has the PHP "plug-in", the PHP in your web site will work.

If you want to run PHP on your personal computer, you'll have to install a web server (IIS, Apache, etc.) and include the PHP package for that server. There are several versions of Apache available that already have PHP (and MySQL et al.) installed, so all you'd have to do is get the one Apache file and install it (I can't think of names off-hand, sorry).

Other people will have a better run down on installing this. Uploading to your webhost shouldn't be that bad, since all your really sending is text files, and getting a functioning web server on your system can be difficult. So don't totally throw away the idea of just posting to your web host.

PHP scripts you will write in the future always work on Linux (if they work on your Windows setup). There are rare occasions where the converse is not true.

Every PHP script I write, I write (and test) on my faithful Windows ME machine and I have yet to find myself stuck, just because I am developing them on a win32 machine.

There are indeed PHP functions that are not supported in the win32 environment and if so, it will be clearly indicated as such in the PHP manual. Take for example the windows-specific notes for Shared Memory Functions but seriously, how often do you see yourself using those?

About downloading PHP, this is a good place to do that : http://www.php.net/downloads.php

As I said, you write PHP scripts just one way and they should work on all supported platforms. Sometimes you need to know exactly which OS the script is being run on so that you can manage a script to handle each situation in it's own way for some specific reason. This is what I usually do (a simple example), since I only write my scripts to work either on Linux or Windows usually.

Yes, www.php.net is a place to go I got my PHP there ) But if you don't want to configure your server and your PHP separetely, you may look for ready-to-use kits. They also my include MySQL, that also will be very useful to you.

One of the main advantages of PHP over other programming languages is that it is cross-platform compatible. Meaning what works on the environment you develop, should work on any other platform which supports PHP,

some guy told me to just get easy php as it comes with apache, php, php myadmin and mysql all in one package.
What do you think ?

As I said before, you may use such a way, especially if you are a novice. When you'll get more experience you will be able to install & configre it by yourself

When I started teaching myself php I installed easyphp to set my Windows pc up as a test server.

It was a complete doddle and I was up and running very quickly with no problems. I don't know how it compares with other systems as it worked so well that I didn't try any others. Don't be put off by the French, there is an English translation to download.

Get it from www.easyphp.org

http://www.appservnetwork.com/index.php?modules=news&applang=en

I loaded appserv. I have 2.5.2 installed now, it runs excellent. It is also an easy set up, just make sure you install everything on C: drive to make life easy for yourself.

The package has everything you would need to run a server on a local host (which is your machine[pc]). And its absolutely no strings free.

Hope it helps.

I am 4 months ahead of you. Cheers mate.