Testing MySQL/PHP locally
Tired of having to ftp your php pages everytime that you need to test your page? Want to test your MySQL queries from your desktop? You can set up your own web test server on your computer. There are a number of ways to do this but we recommend using XAMPP. XAMPP includes the Apache web server and MySQL, PHP and PERL in one package. This makes the installation and set up of your test server much easier. XAMPP is easy to install and is available in several flavors:
- XAMPP for Linux
- XAMPP for Windows
- XAMPP for Mac OS
- XAMPP for Solarius (in early stages of development
Each of the four distributions contain a slightly different package of supplemental programs like a FTP server and stats packages. You can install and use all of the programs within the package or you can pick and choose which to enable. If you are a Windows user, we recommend that you download the installer package. If you use this version, you won’t have to worry about manually changing registry files. Making an error while editing your WIndows registry is a sure fire way to ruin your day!
Servers can easily be started and stopped using the XAMPP control panel. For security reasons, you will only want your web server running when you are testing your application. With XAMPP, you can use their Graphical User Interface and start and stop services with a click of a button. For the hard core traditionalists, you can still use the command line to control your services.