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Introduction to CakePHP

What is CakePHP?

CakePHP is a free open-source rapid development framework for PHP. Its a structure of libraries, classes and run-time infrastructure for programmers creating web applications originally inspired by the Ruby on Rails framework. Our primary goal is to enable you to work in a structured and rapid manner - without loss of flexibility.

Why CakePHP?

CakePHP has several features that make it a great choice as a framework for developing applications swiftly and with the least amount of hassle. Here are a few in no particular order:

  1. Active, friendly community

  2. Flexible Licensing

  3. Compatibility with PHP4 and PHP5

  4. Integrated CRUD for database interaction and simplified queries

  5. Application Scaffolding

  6. Model View Controller (MVC) Architecture

  7. Request dispatcher with good looking, custom URLs

  8. Built-in Validation

  9. Fast and flexible templating (PHP syntax, with helpers)

  10. View Helpers for AJAX, Javascript, HTML Forms and more

  11. Security, Session, and Request Handling Components

  12. Flexible access control lists

  13. Data Sanitization

  14. Flexible View Caching

  15. Works from any web site subdirectory, with little to no Apache configuration involved

History of CakePHP

In 2005, Michal Tatarynowicz wrote a minimal version of a Rapid Application Framework in PHP. He found that it was the start of a very good framework. Michal published the framework under the MIT license, dubbing it Cake, and opened it up to a community of developers, who now maintain Cake under the name CakePHP.