Hi, im having some problems,
First, Im using a mac, OS 10.3.9, and i need a a way to download PHP on it, so i can preview some of the PHP files on my mac, and have it compile them. If anyone has a link to a site where i can download it, that would be great.

Second, I need help setting up PHP and mySQL so that i can have people register, and login to a database...

Thanks so much!

Hi, you can download the source code of PHP for use on a mac at http://www.php.net. Then you can use the instructions found here: http://developer.apple.com/internet/opensource/php.html to install it on your system. I'm not a mac guy or anything; I just googled it (that should be your first choice for finding help )

Hope you get everything working!!

Google XAMPP, it is a php mysql ect package designed for personal use with very little setup (NOT for use online, for security reasons) I think there is a mac version.

There is a version of XAMPP for Mac, but it is still in development and should be used at your own risk.

http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-macosx.html

You would be better off running your php off of someone else's server. Or running it where it will eventually reside. Much, much simpler. If you have virtual pc on your computer then you could try installing easyphp. It's the best php/mysql/apachie sever around. I haven't found anything easier for the mac.round

yeah, its just that its hard to find free/cheep web hosting. But i still need help with mySQL. Im going to sign up for web hosting on this site, and buy the hosting on their partner site (Computing Host). Should I get the site first before asking about mySQL, or can someone help me now? Basically i need to set up a database with mySQL, so that i can have PHP store information onto it.

I bought a big book on PHP and mySQL, and how to integrade between them, but do i have to set up the mySQL before i can use it?

If so, how?

If not, how can i set what variables are stored onto the dataase?

Any help will be great!

If your going to use a host then no, if you mean passwords, and premissions ect. However you do have to set up mySQL databases, then the tables withen them, and lastly the information inside the tables.
Now your big book should help with all that, but if it seems too BIG then just skip the part about installing mySQL, but don't skip the intor to php part.

Now as for help, I would recomend as a start using http://www.learn-php-tutorial.com/ i's very quick, the only thing is you have to enter your email, however the only message I have recieved from them is a weekly message telling you that by now you should be so far in the "course" and that you can learn, that and I think there are ads in the email.

It has a part about installing MySQL and then quering and using MySQL, your book should cover that but this is a quick start.

Thank you so much for all your help, but i still have one more question, If I have people loging in, i need to set a cookie so it dosnt log them out when they change pages, how do i encrypt the cookie, so i cant store the people's user ID and pass in the cookie securly?
One of my friends told me that i need to use a hash... What is this and how do i get it?

Thanks so much!

Again that sould be in your book, however I might reomend looking under a section about sessions, they are relativly new to php, basicly they do the cookie for you, the other way is to pass the username and password along in the url of each page, but I would recomend the ue of an encripted password. MySQL will provide this automaticly if you use the password() function.