wilamowski-b-m-irwin-j-d-industrial-communication-systems-2011

62-2 Industrial Communication Systems
Client side
Server side
Web Browser
e.g. Firefox, IE, etc.
CGI
PHP scripts,
Perl scripts, etc.
Database
HTML, CSS, JavaScript
Interpreter
HTTP
Daemon
FIGURE 62.1
as, PostgreSQL, Oracle, MySQL, to create powerful and dynamic server-side applications. Significant
Web sites that are written in PHP include Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, Facebook, etc.
Database comes to picture when it comes to storing huge amount of information and retrieving the
information back when needed by the Web site. The database can contain information collected from
the user or from the administrator. MySQL (written in C and C++) is an open-source relational database
management system (RDBMS) that is based on the structure query language (SQL) for processing the
data in the database and manages multiuser access to a number of databases. In a relational database,
there are tables that store data. The columns define what kind of information will be stored in the table
and a row contains the actual values for these specified columns. The language provides a standard
syntax for accessing relational databases. MySQL works on many different system platforms, including
Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, OpenSolaris and many others.
PHP (hypertext preprocessor) and MySQL (a portable SQL server) together have made the task of
building and accessing relational databases much easier [2]. This chapter introduces you to PHP and
MySQL and explains how to use these two together in order to build dynamic Web sites [7].
62.2 Installations
Before you begin to design a Web site, you need to set up an environment that facilitates your development.
You can set up a test site on your computer by locally installing the following softwares.
1. Apache—an open-source Web server
Download from: http://tomcat.apache.org/index.html
2. PHP—an open-source general purpose scripting language designed specifically for the Web
Download from: www.php.net/
3. MySQL—an open source database management system
Download from: www.mysql.com/
After the above softwares are downloaded and installed, you need to configure the Apache server to
process the PHP code. You also need to create an MySQL account in order to use it in your PHP code.
Sometimes you may find it difficult to install and configure these softwares but the Web sites where you
download the software will provide you with general instructions to install and configure them. If you
find it difficult to install these softwares will it would be easier for you to find software packages (often
called software bundles) that can install and configure them automatically. A few software packages
of independently created programs are WAMP server (for Windows environment), LAMP server (for
Linux users), MAMP server (for Mac OS) and SAMP server (for Solaris OS).
62.2.1 WAMP Server
Data flow in a client–server partition.
WAMP is an open-source software used to run dynamic Web sites on the Windows environment. The
WAMP package principal components are: Apache Web server, MySQL database management system,
PHP (or Perl/Python) scripting languages and PhpMyAdmin.
© 2011 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC