Good Morning,
I'm trying to learn php, I was wondering if their is anyway I could practice the server side script on my windows xp home computer? I have a website that is on a linux server. I'm sure this has been asked many times, I tried looking, but could not find a solution.
Thank you for your time,
Dave

is this a stupid question?

Yes, in fact it is. Most questions aren't stupid if you do want to know (an are paying attention.)

It's definately possible, I use such a setup. You've got several options, the simplist one is simply to use the PHP command line interpreter (php.exe in PHP5, I think) and pass your scripts through there. That gets kinda annoying after a while...

Your next option is to use an all-in-one package such as EasyPHP (or many others) that include Apache, MySQL, and PHP. Simply start the program before you begin work, and it's just like loading pages from a live web server, but without the FTP and other people having access.

(You could also download these programs yourself and install and configure them, but why bother when someone's already done the work for you?)

Could I just open my php files in firefox browser?

Yes, if you download and install one of the WAMP packages that were outlined above. Check them out.

Thanks appreciate it.
Dave