The mail() function of PHP is quite robust for sending bulk emails. A SMTP server can also be directly used from the script. PHPmailer class can be used for sending emails.

To access the global data which is originating externally, the super globals are used. The superglobals are available as arrays. These superglobals represents the data from URLs, HTML forms, cookies, sessions and also the web server. For this purpose, $HTTP_GET_VARS, $HTTP_POST_VARS are used. The super globals are pretty good enough to be used in functions. The following are the list of super globals.

$_GET, $_POST, $_COOKIE;$_REQUEST, $_SERVER, $_SESSION, $_ENV, $_FILE

Another PHP Superglobal, called $GLOBALS; is available for persisting every variable with global scope.

Following are the steps to create a simple AD rotator script without using database in PHP:

- All the ad’s can be collected in one place and be displayed randomly.rand() function can be used for this purpose.

- In order to NOT use any database, a flat file can be used to store the ad’s.

- In order to store the Ad’s information (HTML code), a flat file say “ad.txt” can be created.

- The random number can be stored in a variable 

$result_random=rand(1, 100);

- Conditions can be checked to display the ad’s.

if($result_random<=70)

{

      echo "Display ad1";

}

Permissions in PHP are very similar to UNIX. Each file has three types of permissions – Read, write and execute. Permissions can be changed using the change mode or CHMOD command. CHMOD is followed by 3 digit number specifying the permission type. CHMOD 777 is for Read, Write and execute.

Unnecessary permissions can be stripped off using UNMASK command.

Unmask (777);

To pass the information into the script from outside, help can be taken from the PHP CLI (Command line interface) method. Suppose addition of two numbers has to be passed to PHP then it can be passed like this on the command line:

php add.php 2 3

Here the script name is add.php, and 2 and 3 are the numbers that has to be added by the script. These numbers are available inside the script in an array called $argv. This array contains all the information on the command line; the statement is stored as follows:

$argv[0]=add.php

$argv[1]=2

$argv[2]=3

So, $argv always contains at least one element — the script name.

Then, in your script, you can use the following statements:

$sum = $argv[1] + $argv[2];

echo $sum;

$argc is a variable that stores the numbers of elements in $argv. $argc is equal to at least 1, which is saved for the name of the script. Example is $argc=3 using the above statements.

Super global arrays are the built in arrays that can be used anywhere. They are also called as auto-global as they can be used inside a function as well. The arrays with the longs names such as $HTTP_SERVER_VARS, must be made global before they can be used in an array. This $HTTP_SERVER_VARS check your php.ini setting for long arrays.

PHP is rapidly gaining the popularity and many companies are switching their current language for this language. PHP is a server side scripting language. PHP executes the instructions on the server itself. Server is a computer where the web site is located. PHP is used to create dynamic pages and provides faster execution of the instructions.

Notices, Warnings and Fatal errors are the types of errors in PHP

Notices: 

Notices represents non-critical errors, i.e. accessing a variable that has not yet been defined. By default, such errors are not displayed to the user at all but whenever required, you can change this default behavior.

Warnings: 

Warnings are more serious errors but they do not result in script termination. i.e calling include() a file which does not exist. By default, these errors are displayed to the user.

Fatal errors: 

Fatal errors are critical errors i.e. calling a non-existent function or class. These errors cause the immediate termination of the script.