15 January 2022 (and before)
Yesterday, I worked on getting a simple ‘hello world php program to run on my web page.’
First steps in doing php within html
What I learned
- a file that has a php suffix.
- php and html files differ considerably in their syntax; they also use different comment characters
- in working with php it must be run from the server (in contrast to html which can be executed locally)
- in working with php, it is very helpful to display the web page source – this allows you to see how the php is generating html on the server.
- To run on my web site, the php must be within a file that has a php suffix
- It is a good idea to use the long form of the tag <?php ?>
- php and html files differ considerably in their syntax; they also use different comment characters
- in working with php it must be run from the server (in contrast to html which can be executed locally)
- in working with php, it is very helpful to display the web page source – this allows you to see how the php is generating html on the server. ]
What I don’t know / Want to figure out
- how to get php working when I want my basic page to be named index .html
using php to randomly load content from a file
Today I worked on trying to get a php script to load random images and other content onto my page. I found a php program called “randy.php” that does this sort of thing; it pulls data from two files data.txt and companion.txt, the latter being a optional file to add data to item.
What I learned today
- txt files, used in this way, are very sensitive. Even though they contain html, the white space matters (unlike in html files).
- In referencing a local subdirectory, it appears to be a good idea to begin with a leading slash
What I don’t know/ want to figure out
- Now I want to think about what I really want to do with this sort of functionality, and then look for the best way to implement it. I currently think I would like to do the following types of things :
- quotes: put up random quotes taken from a file of indefinite length
- images with text: put up an image with a (sometimes extended) caption.
- document with text: perhaps put up a link to a paper with a precis or abstract
- Ideally in all cases I would have a directory for each thing that is randomly selected from; each item
Next Steps
- I started looking into JavaScript (on w3schools, see notes) thinking it might be more straightforward, and certainly easier to test.
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