PHP essentials

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PHP essentials


Many web designers and casual website owners are not conversant with the PHP language in which Joomla! is written and since Joomla! templates usually contain PHP statements it is necessary to understand at least a little of the language in order to be able to create or customise templates. This chunk will describe, in simple terms, how to use each aspect of PHP in the context of a Joomla! template. For example, a simple explanation of the PHP if-then-else syntax using extracts from a template for illustration.

The best resource to learn PHP is probably hands on experience and Joomla can provide that to you thanks to it's native PHP code. This can be overwhelming for people who have not programed before. Though Joomla is easy enough to install with the help of the community and a little of your time you'll have people asking you to do their websites.

One place that has a nice short list if functions and examples is http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/25_Essential_PHP_Functions which is good to get familiar with PHP. Though for an extensive function list, explanations, and examples go to http://www.php.net.

Once you have the basics of PHP you'll need to get the basics of the Joomla PHP syntax. Start by looking at some existing extensions