Fresh Basic PHP Programming Interview Preparation Guide
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Learn PHP programming with Interview Questions and Answers and examples.

139 PHP Questions and Answers:

Table of Contents:

Fresh  PHP Job Interview Questions and Answers
Fresh PHP Job Interview Questions and Answers

1 :: Table rename?

sp_rename old_table_name,new_table_name

2 :: How to split a string into array using php?

$myString = "My Name Is Muhammad Hussain";
$myArray = explode(' ', $myString);
print_r($myArray);

Output :
Array
(
[0] => My
[1] => Name
[2] => Is
[3] => Muhammad
[4] => Hussain
)

3 :: How To Read the Entire File into a Single String?

If you have a file, and you want to read the entire file into a single string, you can use the file_get_contents() function. It opens the specified file, reads all characters in the file, and returns them in a single string. Here is a PHP script example on how to file_get_contents():

<?php
$file = file_get_contents("/windows/system32/drivers/etc/services");
print("Size of the file: ".strlen($file)."n");
?>

This script will print:

Size of the file: 7116

4 :: How many ways can we get the value of current session id?

session_id() returns the session id for the current session.

5 :: What is the difference between include and require?

It’s how they handle failures. If the file is not found by require(), it will cause a fatal error and halt the execution of the script. If the file is not found by include(), a warning will be issued, but execution will continue.

6 :: Explain the ternary conditional operator in PHP?

Expression preceding the ? is evaluated, if it’s true, then the expression preceding the : is executed, otherwise, the expression following : is executed.

7 :: How To Turn On the Session Support in PHP?

The session support can be turned on automatically at the site level, or manually in each PHP page script:

* Turning on session support automatically at the site level: Set session.auto_start = 1 in php.ini.
* Turning on session support manually in each page script: Call session_start() funtion.

8 :: How can I embed a java program in php file and what changes have to be done in php.ini file?

There are two possible ways to bridge PHP and Java: you can either integrate PHP into a Java Servlet environment, which is the more stable and efficient solution, or integrate Java support into PHP. The former is provided by a SAPI module that interfaces with the Servlet server, the latter by this Java extension.
The Java extension provides a simple and effective means for creating and invoking methods on Java objects from PHP. The JVM is created using JNI, and everything runs in-process.

Example Code:

getProperty('java.version') . ''; echo 'Java vendor=' . $system->getProperty('java.vendor') . ''; echo 'OS=' . $system->getProperty('os.name') . ' ' . $system->getProperty('os.version') . ' on ' . $system->getProperty('os.arch') . ' '; // java.util.Date example $formatter = new Java('java.text.SimpleDateFormat', "EEEE, MMMM dd, yyyy 'at' h:mm:ss a zzzz"); echo $formatter->format(new Java('java.util.Date')); ?>

The behavior of these functions is affected by settings in php.ini.
Table 1. Java configuration options
Name
Default
Changeable
java.class.path
NULL
PHP_INI_ALL
Name Default Changeable
java.home
NULL
PHP_INI_ALL
java.library.path
NULL
PHP_INI_ALL
java.library
JAVALIB
PHP_INI_ALL

9 :: Explain about Type Juggling in php?

PHP does not require (or support) explicit type definition in variable declaration; a variable's type is determined by the context in which that variable is used. That is to say, if you assign a string value to variable $var, $var becomes a string. If you then assign an integer value to $var, it becomes an integer.

An example of PHP's automatic type conversion is the addition operator '+'. If any of the operands is a float, then all operands are evaluated as floats, and the result will be a float. Otherwise, the operands will be interpreted as integers, and the result will also be an integer. Note that this does NOT change the types of the operands themselves; the only change is in how the operands are evaluated.

$foo += 2; // $foo is now an integer (2)
$foo = $foo + 1.3; // $foo is now a float (3.3)
$foo = 5 + "10 Little Piggies"; // $foo is integer (15)
$foo = 5 + "10 Small Pigs"; // $foo is integer (15)

If the last two examples above seem odd, see String conversion to numbers.
If you wish to change the type of a variable, see settype().
If you would like to test any of the examples in this section, you can use the var_dump() function.
Note: The behavior of an automatic conversion to array is currently undefined.

Since PHP (for historical reasons) supports indexing into strings via offsets using the same syntax as array indexing, the example above leads to a problem: should $a become an array with its first element being "f", or should "f" become the first character of

10 :: What is the difference between Reply-to and Return-path in the headers of a mail function?

Reply-to: Reply-to is where to delivery the reply of the mail.

Return-path: Return path is when there is a mail delivery failure occurs then where to delivery the failure notification.

11 :: What type of headers have to be added in the mail function to attach a file?

$boundary = '--' . md5( uniqid ( rand() ) );
$headers = "From: "Me"n";
$headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0n";
$headers .= "Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="$boundary"";

12 :: What changes I have to do in php.ini file for file uploading?

Make the following line uncomment like:
; Whether to allow HTTP file uploads.
file_uploads = On
; Temporary directory for HTTP uploaded files (will use system default if not
; specified).
upload_tmp_dir = C:apache2triadtemp
; Maximum allowed size for uploaded files.
upload_max_filesize = 2M

13 :: What is the default session time in php and how can I change it?

The default session time in php is until closing of browser

14 :: How many ways we can give the output to a browser?

HTML output
PHP, ASP, JSP, Servlet Function
Script Language output Function
Different Type of embedded Package to output to a browser

15 :: How can I use the COM components in php?

The COM class provides a framework to integrate (D)COM components into your PHP scripts.
string COM::COM( string module_name [, string server_name [, int codepage]]) - COM class constructor.

Parameters:

module_name: name or class-id of the requested component.
server_name: name of the DCOM server from which the component should be fetched. If NULL, localhost is assumed. To allow DCOM com, allow_dcom has to be set to TRUE in php.ini.
codepage - specifies the codepage that is used to convert php-strings to unicode-strings and vice versa. Possible values are CP_ACP, CP_MACCP, CP_OEMCP, CP_SYMBOL, CP_THREAD_ACP, CP_UTF7 and CP_UTF8.
Usage:
$word->Visible = 1; //open an empty document
$word->Documents->Add(); //do some weird stuff
$word->Selection->TypeText("This is a test…");
$word->Documents[1]->SaveAs("Useless test.doc"); //closing word
$word->Quit(); //free the object
$word->Release();
$word = null;

16 :: How can increase the performance of MySQL select query?

We can use LIMIT to stop MySql for further search in table after we have received our required no. of records, also we can use LEFT JOIN or RIGHT JOIN instead of full join in cases we have related data in two or more tables.

17 :: What type of inheritance that php supports?

In PHP an extended class is always dependent on a single base class, that is, multiple inheritance is not supported. Classes are extended using the keyword 'extends'.

18 :: Explain normalization concept?

The normalization process involves getting our data to conform to three progressive normal forms, and a higher level of normalization cannot be achieved until the previous levels have been achieved (there are actually five normal forms, but the last two are mainly academic and will not be discussed).

First Normal Form
The First Normal Form (or 1NF) involves removal of redundant data from horizontal rows. We want to ensure that there is no duplication of data in a given row, and that every column stores the least amount of information possible (making the field atomic).

Second Normal Form
Where the First Normal Form deals with redundancy of data across a horizontal row, Second Normal Form (or 2NF) deals with redundancy of data in vertical columns. As stated earlier, the normal forms are progressive, so to achieve Second Normal Form, your tables must already be in First Normal Form.

Third Normal Form
I have a confession to make; I do not often use Third Normal Form. In Third Normal Form we are looking for data in our tables that is not fully dependent on the primary key, but defendant on another value in the table

19 :: What is maximum size of a database in mysql?

If the operating system or filesystem places a limit on the number of files in a directory, MySQL is bound by that constraint. The efficiency of the operating system in handling large numbers of files in a directory can place a practical limit on the number of tables in a database. If the time required to open a file in the directory increases significantly as the number of files increases, database performance can be adversely affected.
The amount of available disk space limits the number of tables.
MySQL 3.22 had a 4GB (4 gigabyte) limit on table size. With the MyISAM storage engine in MySQL 3.23, the maximum table size was increased to 65536 terabytes (2567 – 1 bytes). With this larger allowed table size, the maximum effective table size for MySQL databases is usually determined by operating system constraints on file sizes, not by MySQL internal limits.
The InnoDB storage engine maintains InnoDB tables within a tablespace that can be created from several files. This allows a table to exceed the maximum individual file size. The tablespace can include raw disk partitions, which allows extremely large tables. The maximum tablespace size is 64TB.

20 :: What are the advantages of stored procedures, triggers, indexes in PHP?

A stored procedure is a set of SQL commands that can be compiled and stored in the server. Once this has been done, clients don't need to keep re-issuing the entire query but can refer to the stored procedure. This provides better overall performance because the query has to be parsed only once, and less information needs to be sent between the server and the client. You can also raise the conceptual level by having libraries of functions in the server. However, stored procedures of course do increase the load on the database server system, as more of the work is done on the server side and less on the client (application) side. Triggers will also be implemented. A trigger is effectively a type of stored procedure, one that is invoked when a particular event occurs. For example, you can install a stored procedure that is triggered each time a record is deleted from a transaction table and that stored procedure automatically deletes the corresponding customer from a customer table when all his transactions are deleted. Indexes are used to find rows with specific column values quickly. Without an index, MySQL must begin with the first row and then read through the entire table to find the relevant rows. The larger the table, the more this costs. If the table has an index for the columns in question, MySQL can quickly determine the position to seek to in the middle of the data file without having to look at all the data.

21 :: What are the difference between abstract class and interface?

Abstract class: abstract classes are the class where one or more methods are abstract but not necessarily all method has to be abstract. Abstract methods are the methods, which are declare in its class but not define. The definition of those methods must be in its extending class.

Interface: Interfaces are one type of class where all the methods are abstract. That means all the methods only declared but not defined. All the methods must be define by its implemented class.

22 :: How can I make a script that can be bilingual (supports English, German)?

You can change charset variable in above line in the script to support bilanguage.

24 :: What is the use of friend function in PHP?

Friend functions
Sometimes a function is best shared among a number of different classes. Such functions can be declared either as member functions of one class or as global functions. In either case they can be set to be friends of other classes, by using a friend specifier in the class that is admitting them. Such functions can use all attributes of the class which names them as a friend, as if they were themselves members of that class.
A friend declaration is essentially a prototype for a member function, but instead of requiring an implementation with the name of that class attached by the double colon syntax, a global function or member function of another class provides the match.
class mylinkage
{
private:
mylinkage * prev;
mylinkage * next;

protected:
friend void set_prev(mylinkage* L, mylinkage* N);
void set_next(mylinkage* L);

public:
mylinkage * succ();
mylinkage * pred();
mylinkage();
};

void mylinkage::set_next(mylinkage* L) { next = L; }

void set_prev(mylinkage * L, mylinkage * N ) { N->prev = L; }

Friends in other classes
It is possible to specify a member function of another class as a friend as follows:
class C
{
friend int B::f1();
};
class B
{
int f1();
};

It is also possible to specify all the functions in another class as friends, by specifying the entire class as a friend.
class A
{
friend class B;
};

25 :: What are the current versions of Apache, PHP, and MySQL?

PHP: PHP 5.1.2
MySQL: MySQL 5.1
Apache: Apache 2.1
PHP Interview Questions and Answers
139 PHP Interview Questions and Answers