Entry

What does PHP stand for?

Mar 15th, 2008 21:28
dman, ha mo, Philip Olson, Knud van Eeden, unknown unknown, Mike G., Techek, Matt Gregory, jeffrey chong, http://www.ttnr.org

PHP is a recursive acronym that stands for:
  _    _         _
  PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor 
  ^    ^         ^

The following PHP faq mentions this, as does the manuals preface:

  http://www.php.net/manual/en/faq.general.php#AEN74233
  http://www.php.net/manual/en/preface.php

The definition of "recursive acronym" can be seen here:

  http://foldoc.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?recursive+acronym

The history of PHP may interest you, have a look:

  http://www.php.net/manual/en/history.php

Note that originally PHP/FI stood for:

  Personal Home Page / Forms Interpreter

Which can also be read about in the old PHP/FI manual:

  http://www.php.net/manual/phpfi2.php#history