Prerequisites

To try the examples in this chapter, you will need access to a web server that understands PHP. I'll be using the Apache web server with PHP installed, but you can also use PHP with Microsoft's IIS, Netscape's web server, and many other servers. To find out if the PostgreSQL interface is available in your copy of PHP, call the phpinfo() function and look for a section titled “PostgreSQL Support.” If you see that section, you're ready to go. If you don't you might have to compile PHP from source code. You can learn how to compile PHP for your platform at the Zend website (http://www.zend.com). Be sure to add the --with-pgsql option when you configure the PHP source code.

I'll assume that you are comfortable reading simple HTML documents and have some basic familiarity with PHP in general. Most of this chapter focuses on the details of interacting with a PostgreSQL database from PHP. If you need more information regarding general PHP programming, visit http://www.zend.com.