PHP, which stands for "PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor", is an HTML-embedded scripting language. Much of its syntax is borrowed from C, Java and Perl with a couple of unique PHP-specific features thrown in. The goal of the language is to allow web developers to write dynamically generated pages quickly.
This manual is written in XML using the DocBook XML DTD, using DSSSL (Document Style and Semantics Specification Language) for formatting. The tools used for formatting HTML, TeX and RTF versions are Jade, written by James Clark and The Modular DocBook Stylesheets written by Norman Walsh. PHP's documentation framework is maintained by Stig Sæther Bakken.
Daily HTML snapshots of the manual, including translations, can be found at http://snaps.php.net/manual/.