[SOLVED] Regarding PHP
lazarus / 38-Networking and Web Programming

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egsuh · 2023-06-29 02:59

May I think that PHP is similar to the ASP (Active Server Page) or
javascript? With "similar", I mean ASP or javascript is written in a
section within HTML, blocked with <%.. %> or <script>... </script>.  I
found that PHP is within <?php ... ?>.

Just interested in this, in order to compare PHP and FreePascal in
webserver.

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abunakov · 2023-06-29 05:05

PHP is similar to ASP in a way. Although I'd rather say that ASP is
similar to PHP since PHP was first.
Both use similar constructs to denote code snippets inside an HTML
page.

There is a big difference between PHP/ASP and JavaScript though.

Scripts within <script> tags are transmitted from the server to the
browser and executed by the browser runtime (i.e. on the client).

In contrast, PHP scripts are executed on the server by PHP
interpreter. PHP replaces those <?php ...> snippets with HTML markup.
So the the browser will never see any of <?php ...> tags.

ASP work in a similar way.

There is also Node.js. It's a JavaScript runtime which like PHP also
runs on the server.

But still it's important to remember which parts of code run where.
PHP/ASP/Node.js run on the server. JavaScript enclosed in <script>
tags runs in the browser.

Read more about PHP here:
https://www.php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php

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egsuh · 2023-06-29 05:49

@abunakov

Thank you for your reply. I know that PHP and ASP are server-side
scripts and javascript is client-side script.
Just wanted to check that PHP codes are immersed into HTML pages (like
ASP, node.js, or javascript codes). With this much information, I can
imagine how it works (whether right or wrong ) enough to compare with
Free Pascal's web working. Thanks again.

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Thaddy · 2023-06-29 08:00

Quote from: egsuh on June 29, 2023, 07:49:21 amI can imagine how it
works (whether right or wrong ) enough to compare with Free Pascal's
web working. Thanks again.
That means you still do not fully understand it:
1. FreePascal has bindings for all the serverside scripting either
PHP, JavaScript, Java (sec) or others.
2. FreePascal can also be natively used serverside, which can be often
faster.
3. FreePascal has even Pas2JS, which enables JavaScript programming
using Object Pascal code.
4. FreePascal even supports compiled webassembly code through a native
cross compiler on multiple platforms.

So whatever you prefer is already provided in standard FreePascal
libraries and (cross) compilers. It is just up to you what you find
the better option for your task at hand.
I do not know of any compiler that supports all the above options.

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egsuh · 2023-06-29 08:21

@Thaddy,

I've written several web server programs with Free Pascal, and nothing
else.  I'm checking how to use others like PHP, Node.js, etc. to
explain the characteristics of my approach.

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Thaddy · 2023-06-29 08:30

I do about the same what you do, but I often run server-side
performance tests and these differ per job. I use  e.g. node.js +
pas2js for kiosk (full screen javascript applications) and php4fpc to
interface some code with my web servers or (fast)CGI applications on
my web servers, etc.
It is really down to analyzing the job at hand, the platform(s), all
those things.
Usually a customer is tight to many restrictions and that is my guide
input.

At the moment I am more and more experimenting with webassembly, but
that is just because I have the time (65+) and can put in the effort:
I only have some consulting jobs and most of those are not
programming, but security training. (SEH, SCSP)

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Warfley · 2023-06-29 09:01

PHP is really great to quickly built a small webpage (and since the
last few versions PHP as a language isn't aweful anymore, it now even
has a static type system)

Basically PHP files will be sent to the PHP interpreter. Plaintext in
the file will be directly sent to the client, but as soon as the
interpreter finds a <?php (or <? for short) it will switch to PHP mode
and interpret everything that follows as PHP until it reaches the
corresponding ?>.

For example if you have a list of articles you want to display:
Code: PHP  [Select][+][-]window.onload = function(){var x1 =
document.getElementById("main_content_section"); if (x1) { var x =
document.getElementsByClassName("geshi");for (var i = 0; i <ul
class="Articles"><? foreach ($article in load_articles()) { ?>  <li> 
 <p class="HeadLine><? echo $article->name; ?></p>    <p
class="Summary><? echo $article->summary; ?></p>    <a href=<? echo
"'".$article->url.'"'; ?>>Read More...</a>  </li><? } /* End of
foreach */ ?></ul>
So if your goal is to quickly setup a webpage with some dynamic parts,
you will probably be done in PHP before you've even setup your fp-web
project.
That said, when you aren't building a template based backend (e.g.
instead of HTML sites you write a REST server), this this easy
templating around which PHP is built does not really benefit you.

Powerful templating engines is something that is often missing in many
languages

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egsuh · 2023-06-29 09:27

Quote I only have some consulting jobs and most of those are not
programming, but security training. (SEH, SCSP)
I'm expecting getting some advices or guides from you (or others here)
in near future.

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Thaddy · 2023-06-29 10:35

Unless you missed something, I have been doing that for 25 years:
proper wiki entries
bug reports
accepted patches

and regarding security a LOT of answers on this forum why some things
do not work anymore and how to fix it.

I also do stupid things but mostly they were pointed out by
PascalDragon.

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egsuh · 2023-07-01 02:43

I haven’t done writing web server with other tools than fpc but
looking at the structure of ASP or PHP,  I think one advantage of fpc
is that I can separate web page design from what is called business
logic, e.g. db operations. I can keep a separate datamodule which
contains db and related codes which can be shared by other
applications.

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Warfley · 2023-07-01 09:59

Quote from: egsuh on July 01, 2023, 04:43:57 amI haven’t done writing
web server with other tools than fpc but looking at the structure of
ASP or PHP,  I think one advantage of fpc is that I can separate web
page design from what is called business logic, e.g. db operations. I
can keep a separate datamodule which contains db and related codes
which can be shared by other applications.
You can also do this with PHP and ASP. Usually you will have your
whole buisnesslogic in a seperate PHP directory and files, which are
then included by your frontend files that also contain the HTML.

For example from one of my websites, a frontend facing file:
Code: PHP  [Select][+][-]window.onload = function(){var x1 =
document.getElementById("main_content_section"); if (x1) { var x =
document.getElementsByClassName("geshi");for (var i = 0; i <?php //
Including internalsset_include_path(__DIR__ . "/../");require_once
"internal/utils.php";require_once "internal/users.php";require_once
"internal/session.php";require_once "internal/requests.php"; //
...?>[...] // Usage in HTML<table>            <?php           
$request_id = create_request($conn, $REQUEST_VALIDITY);            ?> 
         
<tr><th>User</th><th>Rights</th><th>Password</th><th>Delete</th></tr> 
          <?php                $users = User::all_users($conn);      
        foreach ($users as $user) {            ?>            <tr>    
          <td><?php echo $user->name; ?></td>                [...]  //
Filling table with user data            </tr>            <?php } ?>  
    </table> 
Where the class User in users.php then abstracts away all the database
functionality:
Code: PHP  [Select][+][-]window.onload = function(){var x1 =
document.getElementById("main_content_section"); if (x1) { var x =
document.getElementsByClassName("geshi");for (var i = 0; i <?php class
User {     public readonly int $uid;    public readonly string $name; 
  private string $salt;    private int $access_level;     function
__construct(array $row) {        $this->uid = $row["ID"];       
$this->name = $row["Name"];        $this->salt = $row["Salt"];       
$this->access_level = $row["AccessLevel"];    }    [...]    static
public function all_users(PDO $conn): array {        $result =
array();        $query = $conn->query("SELECT ID, Name, Salt,
AccessLevel FROM Users");        foreach ($query as $row) {          
$user = new User($row);            array_push($result, $user);       
}        return $result;    } 
This way I can use this users file in all of my subpages and have all
the database stuff in one place

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egsuh · 2023-07-01 10:36

QuoteYou can also do this with PHP and ASP. Usually you will have your
whole buisnesslogic in a seperate PHP directory and files, which are
then included by your frontend files that also contain the HTML.
Thank you for your information but I have no intention to study PHP or
ASP at all. Pascal only is too much for me^^.

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Leledumbo · 2023-07-02 23:34

Quote from: egsuh on July 01, 2023, 04:43:57 amI haven’t done writing
web server with other tools than fpc but looking at the structure of
ASP or PHP,  I think one advantage of fpc is that I can separate web
page design from what is called business logic, e.g. db operations. I
can keep a separate datamodule which contains db and related codes
which can be shared by other applications.
As Warfley said, you can also do that in ASP/PHP. The difference is,
it's optional there, while it can be said a must in FPC (technically,
it's possible to go down the same route, DelphiWebScript already does
it, for example). However, experience tells us that ain't a good way
and the modern approach to web programming largely avoids it, for that
separation of concerns reason. A semi-ideal approach is to use
programming language agnostic templates, like Mustache, where we have
an implementation for in fcl-mustache (need FPC trunk AFAIR). This can
be used both as server and client side template, which is still quite
flexible although frontend developers will likely to prefer direct DOM
manipulation in JavaScript.

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egsuh · 2023-07-03 01:03

Currently I'm using javascript heavily. Probably that's why I'd like
to separate data and design.

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Warfley · 2023-07-03 08:59

Seperation of Logic and Design is great, as I have shown, I also do
this with a templated website in PHP. The thing is, personally I think
that most a website should be fully functional without javascript,
i.e. where all of the contents can be generated by the server. I work
in IT-Security, and at work we have JavaScript generally disabled for
security reasons. And I find it really sad that so many pages that
have no reason to rely on Javascript do so. For example many news
websites today don't function without JS, even though the whole
purpose of their Website is to simply display data without being
interactive in any way.

The Problem is, for creating the pages on the server side, you need a
good templating engine. I have used Pascal for a few Websites, but it
was sorely lacking in that regard. It very often boiled down to
generating the HTML strings myself in code (e.g. for a list of
articles, I would literally just concatinate entry templates
together).

PHP isn't a great language, but through it's template driven design,
you will be able to create webpages really fast. A basic website that
fetches data from a MySQL database and displays it in a list is done
in absolutely no time. Also, while PHP is often the butt end of jokes
regarding security, PHP provides alot of typical security functions
you need in the web of the cuff, like a cryptographically secure
random number generator, hash functions and more generally it has up
to date OpenSSL bindings.
So when you just want to get a small website done quickly, PHP is
probably the best option out there