# Chapter 1: Introduction

PHP is a server-side, cross-platform, HTML embedded scripting language. With the release of v3.06 of PHP, the installation of the Empress ODBC client driver as is now an optional part of the PHP installation.

The PHP unified ODBC interface does not require the use of an ODBC driver manager, it simply allows the system to link in to a RDBMS vendor system via the ODBC API.

PHP is a powerful scripting language designed specifically for embedding into HTML pages. It can be used as a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) program a Fast CGI program, or, if you are using Apache as you Web server, an Apache module.