The php, asp, html conundrum

[a.jenery]

As I understand things, it goes as follows:

1. Web pages can be written in the usual html (or varaiations of, i.e. xtml), or in asp, or in php; all of which are scripting languages.

2. However, the usual html is not siutable for being able to produce scripts that will process things like form-data (in a html form-page), hence the need for php or asp scripts (usually held on the hosts server) and a reference code/tag on the html form page. Correct me if I'm wrong here...

Seeing as asp or php can be used for both creating/editing web pages and for writing processing-scripts (which presumably can process form-data in asp/php pages, as well as html one's), why are popular web editors still oriented towards html? Why do we still have html at all..?

[Pheonix]

Nope, you have it wrong.
HTML is not a scripting language, its a markup language. Which means its used to "decorate" text effect layout etc.

PHP and ASP are serverside scripting languages, that process the page before it is sent to the browser/client. Normaly their output is an html page that can be displayed by a web browser, but they can also produce plain text, emails, images, flash, etc, or nothing at all.

[a.jenery]

Right - many thanks for that. I see where I was going wrong.
I know, at risk of a contradiction here, that 'ML' stands for Markup Language, only I heard somewhere that you could embed PHP code into a HTML document which is what confused me a bit - don't know if this is possible?

Anyway - so scripting languages like ASP/PHP usually process html pages before they are sent to the browser, then?
I'm still confused a bit here - wouldn't a server side script generally only be required for processing form data in which case the page would be processed after it has been sent to the browser? That is, a visitor submits a html form page that calls a processing script as specified in the form action (?). No contradiction here, but...

[sypher]

I heard somewhere that you could embed PHP code into a HTML document which is what confused me a bit - don't know if this is possible?

Yes with the <?php and ?> tags you can embed php into html.

They dont process the html pages they just process/parse the server side parts of the pages where html or asp applies. The browser process's the html part.
user > server > browser > user

Hope you get the idea.

[a.jenery]

Many thanks...

I understand, in a way. But I also don't understand.
In the form's action-field (I use Dreamweaver) would I not specify the script (for my purposes, a script that will process form-data) to be called?
So, going by your answer which is clearing up a lot of things, does it matter whether the PHP script is embedded in the html form-page (also on the server in the first place), or if it resides as a standalone script on the server (php enabled); that is, not embedded?
In which case, why are both options adopted? Also, if the PHP script is embedded in the html form-page, do I still have to specify this/the script in the form's action field?

regards..

[sypher]

Beginners usually seperate their php scripts on seperate files.
For example:

Code: Select all

<form method="post" action"process-data.php">

Then they would make a php file names process-data which would handle all the form data.
But once you learn more about php you can embed all you need into the form itself.
Example:

Code: Select all

<form method="post" action="form.php">

This sends the data to itself and the php would process the data, meaning you wouldnt need 2 seperate files.

Hope you understand :P

[benbramz]

sypher never makes sense...lol

let us know how u get on!