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Server-side Scripting Primer

ASP and PHP - Server-side Scripting

An HTML file can contain HTML tags, text and scripts.

Server-side scripting is about "programming" the behavior of the server. This is called server-side scripting or server scripting.

Client-side scripting is about "programming" the behavior of the browser. (see Web JavaScript chapter).

Normally, when a browser requests an HTML file, the server returns the file. However, if the file contains a server-side script, the script is executed on the server before the file is returned to the browser as plain HTML.

What can Server Scripts Do?

  • Dynamically edit, change or add any content to a Web page
  • Respond to user queries or data submitted from HTML forms
  • Access any data or databases and return the result to a browser
  • Customize a Web page to make it more useful for individual users
  • Provide security since your server code cannot be viewed from a browser

Important: Because the scripts are executed on the server, the browser that displays the file does not need to support scripting at all!

ASP and PHP

At W3Schools we demonstrate server-side scripting by using Active Server Pages (ASP) and Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP).

ASP Examples

Write text with ASP
How to write text with ASP.

Add some HTML to the text
How to format the text with HTML tags.

How to Learn ASP or PHP?

Study our Complete ASP tutorial, or our Complete PHP tutorial.


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