There’s a lot of outdated information on the Web that leads new PHP users astray, propagating bad practices and insecure code. PHP: The Right Way is an easy-to-read, quick reference for PHP popular coding standards, links to authoritative tutorials around the Web, and what the contributors consider to be best practices at the present time.
There is no canonical way to use PHP. This website aims to introduce new PHP developers to some topics which they may not discover until it is too late, and aims to give seasoned pros some fresh ideas on those topics they’ve been doing for years without ever reconsidering. This website will also not tell you which tools to use, but instead offer suggestions for multiple options, when possible explaining the differences in approach and use-case.
If you are getting started with PHP, start with the current stable release of PHP 8.1. PHP 8.x adds many new features over the older 7.x and 5.x versions. The engine has been largely re-written, and PHP is now even quicker than older versions. PHP 8 is a major update of the language and contains many new features and optimizations.
You should try to upgrade to the latest stable version quickly - PHP 5.6 is already End of Life. Upgrading is easy, as there are not many backwards compatibility breaks. If you are not sure which version a function or feature is in, you can check the PHP documentation on the php.net website.
With PHP 5.4 or newer, you can start learning PHP without installing and configuring a full-fledged web server. To start the server, run the following command from your terminal in your project’s web root:
