Best way to convert HTML based site to PHP?

[tuckerkatt]

I have an HTML site with approximately 1,000 pages that I am going to convert to PHP. Does that mean I will need to change every file from .html/.shtml extensions to .php? And also change every link to a .html/.shtml file within each file as well? If that's the case, what is the best (quickest) way to do this?

Thanks!

[StupidScript]

If you're using an Apache server it's really quite simple, and doesn't require you to change any file extensions or links.

In your Apache httpd.conf file, look for the definition of the PHP MIME type and add the .html file extension to the space-separated list, i.e.:

AddType application/x-httpd-php .php .html

If there are additional definitions (i.e. for php4), add .html to those lines, as well.

Restart the web server to apply the change.

This will cause all files with the .html extension to be parsed by the PHP engine before delivery. You will now be able to include whatever PHP code that you like within those pages, and they will be handled just like the default .php files.

There are discussions about server overhead using this method, and I expect we may see some comments here about that, however on even high-load servers I have not seen any significant resource issues as a result of handling files in this manner. If your site is all .html instead of all .php, the PHP process is handling the same number of files that it normally would, anyway.

[sim]

I'll conver them all for you for 25$ ;-=]

[Izzmo]

Oh, StupidScript,
that's a good idea, I've never actually thought about that

[StupidScript]

Thx, Izzmo!

BTW, adding .shtml to the same definitions will also work, with those files being parsed both by the SSI engine and by PHP's engine. (I believe SSI will process first, then hand it off to PHP.)