Dynamic sites

Content and design live separately

content lives in a database that is placed on a webpage only when needed or asked for

Benefits

quicker page loading

can update own website content with limited web design expertise

Client side

content is generated on the client's computer

• browser retrieves a page from the server
• processes the code embedded in the page (usually Javascript)
• displays the retrieved page's content to the user

Server side

content generated on server

• client sends the server the request
• server receives the request and processes the server-side script such as PHP based on the query string, HTTP POST data, cookies, etc.
• For example:

<?php
 
//the contents
$contents = array
(
"nothing in page 0",
"page 1 is here",
"page 2......"
);
//output the current date
echo "Current Date:" . date('r') . "<br />";
 
//echo the content of the page based on the query string
echo "content for this page: " . $contents[$_GET['page']]; 
 
?>

• The output is sent to the browser. If the URL is like this: http://example.com/content.php?page=1, the content will be:

  Current Date:Thu, 21 Dec 2000 16:01:07 +0200<br />
  page 1 is here