PHP Overview: Role of PHP in web development, client vs. server-side architecture, and PHP 8.x modern engine features.

Local Development Setup: Installing and configuring local servers (XAMPP / WAMP / MAMP), Apache, and PHP extensions.

Core Syntax & Script Execution: PHP tags (<?php ... ?>), output mechanisms (echo, print), and clean commenting standards.

Variables & Scope: Variable naming rules, reference variables, and global vs. local variable scope.

Data Types & Type Casting: Scalar types (String, Integer, Float, Boolean), compound types, and explicit type conversion.

Operators & Expressions: Arithmetic, assignment, comparison, logical, null coalescing (??), and spaceship (<=>) operators.

Constants: Defining immutable values using define() and the const keyword.

Conditional Branching: if, else, elseif, ternary operator, and switch/match expressions.

Looping Structures: for, while, do-while, and break/continue loop control.

Iterating Collections: Traversing data structures efficiently using foreach loops with key-value pairs.

String Manipulation: String concatenation, interpolation, length calculation, sub-strings, and string replacement.

Core Built-in Utilities: Practical usage of Math functions (round, rand), Date & Time functions, and data parsing utilities.

Formatting & Cleansing: Trimming whitespace, HTML entity encoding, and regular expression (RegEx) matching.

Array Structures: Creating and indexing Single-dimensional, Associative, and Multidimensional arrays.

Array Manipulation: Adding, removing, slicing, and merging arrays (array_push, array_pop, array_merge, array_slice).

Sorting & Transformation: Array sorting methods (sort, ksort, asort), searching (in_array, array_search), and iterating with array_map / array_filter.

Function Declarations: Writing custom functions, parameter definitions, type hinting, and return type declarations.

Advanced Arguments: Default parameter values, passing by reference (&), and variable-length arguments (variadic/splat operator ...).

Anonymous & Arrow Functions: Working with closures, lambda callbacks, and modern arrow function syntax.

HTTP Methods & Superglobals: Processing user requests via $_GET, $_POST, and $_REQUEST.

Form Validation & Cleansing: Validating inputs (emails, URLs, numbers) and sanitizing data using filter_var().

Security Essentials: Preventing Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) and form hijacking using htmlspecialchars().

File I/O Operations: Reading and writing files using fopen(), fread(), fwrite(), file_get_contents(), and file_put_contents().

File System Management: Checking file existence, copying, renaming, and deleting files programmatically.

Secure File Uploads: Processing $_FILES, verifying MIME types, validating maximum file sizes, and safely storing user uploads on the server.

Cookie Management: Creating, reading, modifying, and expiring cookies via setcookie() and $_COOKIE.

Session Handling: Initializing sessions with session_start(), storing state in $_SESSION, and session destruction.

Authentication Flows: Building protected page redirects, flash messages, and user login/logout mechanisms.

OOP Fundamentals: Defining classes, instantiating objects, and understanding property visibility (public, protected, private).

Constructors & Destructors: Initializing state with __construct() and resource cleanup with __destruct().

Core OOP Principles: Class inheritance (extends), method overriding, encapsulation (getters/setters), and static properties/methods.

Database Connection: Connecting securely using PDO (PHP Data Objects) and MySQLi.

CRUD Operations: Executing CREATE, READ, UPDATE, and DELETE queries.

Security & Prepared Statements: Preventing SQL Injection attacks using parameterized queries and prepared statements.

Data Fetching: Fetching query results as associative arrays and objects for front-end rendering.

Project Scope: Build a full-stack, modular web application (e.g., User Authentication & Content Management System or Employee Directory).

Key Implementations:

• Secure user registration, password hashing (password_hash), and session-based login.

• Multi-part form handling with avatar/image file uploads.

• MySQL database persistence with structured PDO CRUD operations.

• Server-side input validation and error feedback messaging.