PHP is mainly focused on server-side scripting, so we need to install it on the server with a working PHP installation. While there are many ways to install PHP in a complete packaged stack, this lecture note focouses on installing PHP alone and running it from the command line with the built-in web server.
Installing PHP on Windows
- Download the appropriate zip file for your architecture.
- Extract the ZIP file.
- Add the extracted directory to the PATH environment variable.
- Start the Command Prompt/CMD application and run `php -v'
Below is a video on how PHP can be installed on Windows 11 or 10, configuring the environment variable, and running PHP from the Command Prompt (CMD).
Installing PHP on macOS
The easiest way to install PHP on macOS is to use brew, the package manager. You can install homebrew, by following the instructions at brew.sh. Next, run:
brew install php.
Installing PHP on Linux
Installing PHP on Linux depends on the Linux distribution you are using. For instance on a debian based Linux system, you may use apt to install PHP:
apt install php-common php-cli.
On an RPM-based distributions such as Red Hat Linux or CentOS/Rocky Linux, you can yum:
yum install php
Running PHP from the command line (CLI)
- Open your terminal app (e.g., command prompt on Windows or Terminal app on macOS):
- Go to the directory/folder where your PHP project is stored at:
cd /path/to/project/. - Run the built-in web server using:
php -S -t ., where.refers to the current working directory you cd’ed to in the previous step.