Beginner PHP Tutorial - 7 - The php.ini File Video Lecture | PHP for Absolute Beginners: From Novice to PHP Master - Web Development

hello this is Alex from PHP academy' org
and this is a video tutorial for the new
Boston now in this video we're going to
be looking at our PHP ini file now ini
ini files or any files whatever you
decide to however you slide to pronounce
them I say I and I just because I'm
being literal and saying each character
it's basically a configuration file so
you know that as soon as we see the file
PHP dot ini we automatically know that
this is a PHP configuration file now
what is our configuration file our PHP
configuration file and where can we find
it now I've opened my text editor here
so I can open this file and we can have
a look through at some of the features
inside it and how we can change things
about our PHP installation so you can
have a good look at this maybe print it
out take it around with you look at
different things because it's really
useful to get to know inside of your PHP
dot ini file because a lot of PHP
problems that you later realize when
you're coding actually come down to the
settings in your PHP dot ini file so
let's create an open dialog well open up
an open dialog now you can see that at
the moment I'm in C colon backslash
xampp backslash PHP now this is because
I have I'm running an xampp package you
can see here I've got my xampp control
panel open and I've got Apache my sequel
running blah blah this is just my this
is just my package that I've installed
that contains Apache along with PHP
installed with Apache so this is our
folder with PHP and it's got all the
information and the runtime dll's about
with regards to our PHP installation
now obviously the file we want is let's
just find it it would be here is PHP to
ienai so this is the typical location
depending on whether you've installed
PHP yourself if you've installed Apache
and PHP yourself or if you're using a
package such as xampp alarm some of the
others ones we've got W amp I think so
let's go ahead and just open up our PHP
to ini now obviously if you are having
trouble finding this you can just do a
local search on your computer just make
sure it looks like it
in a sort of relative location to your
local webserver okay so when we open up
this file you notice that we have a
warning and a bit about PHP dot ini now
this is very important by default PHP
installs itself with the configuration
suitable for development purposes and
not for production purposes now what
this means is the PHP the default
installation PHP ini is not suitable for
when you were just if you were to say
okay so I've got a local webserver on my
on my computer here's my IP address you
can see what pages I'm running always
always always when you want to show
people or release PHP files or a project
that you've created always upload it to
a paid hosting or a free hosting but
some kind of commercial hosting website
because what you don't want is you don't
want to have the in experience of not
setting this file up properly and you
suffering for that so there's lots of
security aspects that when we enable
settings and disable settings in this
PHP dot ini file we tend to find that
we're allowing ourselves from ability so
we can go down you can see standard
syntax in here is that we've got the
semicolon as a as an end of a line so
well as a comment in in this purpose you
can see that we've got loads of set
semicolons here that are basically just
commenting this out so this won't be
processed by by PHP so let's go down and
find a setting okay so you can see that
things like engine on is not commented
out so these are file these are settings
that are currently in use then that you
can modify so let's go down and find
something that we might change okay so
you've got things like Zed libbed or
output compression off you've got a
quite a descriptive description up here
quite an extensive description of what
it does as with you do with most
settings you'll find that a lot of this
file is is actually description so we're
not going to change any settings now
we'll leave that to later when we need
to we're going to talk about things like
error handling and how we can change
this inside our PHP dot ini file just
one more note
is when you make a modification to PHP
dot ini if you were to say print this
out and go through a reader and you
might get to a stage in your programming
where you know that you want to change a
value now once you've changed a value
and you've saved the file so you go to
file and save that's absolutely fine
however what you need to do is you need
to either restart Apache manually or you
need to bring up your exam or similar
control panel and stop this service
before you restart it so for example if
I was to change something in here so I'd
be able to change this value for any
reason I can then oh I should then sorry
I open up my exam or other control panel
and I stop the service simply stop the
service again okay so the service isn't
the service is now stopped we can click
start again wait till that starts back
up and it's running again now what we've
done is PHP has taken into account the
changes that you've made and will now
process them according to what you've
written so my strong recommendation will
be to have a look through this see if
anything catches your eye get to know
different values and what they do and
read some of the descriptions if you
have time because it's a really really
useful file to know what you're doing
with a lot of PHP problems that crop up
like I said are to do with files or to
do the values in this either being
disabled or enabled or switch to
something that not allowing a certain
piece of code that you're using or sort
of method you're using on your website
or code not to work so PHP dot ini files
basically the PHP configuration file for
PHP have a browse around it and
hopefully it will be of some use to you
in the future