Running PHP apps with a built-in PHP web server

Since PHP 5.4, you can run PHP scripts and apps with the built-in PHP web server, without needing a common web server such as Apache or Nginx. As long as you have PHP 7.4 installed, you can skip the preceding Apache installation. To start the PHP server, just open a terminal from your project's root directory and run the following command:

$ php -S 0.0.0.0:8181

If you want to start the app from a specific document root directory, such as from the public directory, in the project directory called www, do the following:

$ cd ~/www
$ php -S localhost:8181 -t public

Let's create a classic "Hello World" example that will be served up by this built-in PHP web server to see whether everything is set up correctly:

1. Create a simple "Hello World" message page in a PHP file, as follows:

// public/index.php
<?php
echo 'Hello world!';

2. Navigate to your project directory and start it with the built...