What are the benefits of using XAMPP as a development environment for PHP projects?

XAMPP is a popular cross-platform web server solution that includes Apache, MySQL, PHP, and Perl. It provides a convenient way to set up a local development environment for PHP projects without the need to install and configure each component separately. XAMPP also includes phpMyAdmin for managing MySQL databases and other useful tools like FileZilla for FTP file transfer. Overall, XAMPP simplifies the process of setting up a development environment, making it easier for developers to focus on coding and testing their PHP projects.

// Example PHP code snippet using XAMPP for a simple PHP project
<?php
// Connect to MySQL database using XAMPP
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "root";
$password = "";
$dbname = "my_database";

$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);

// Check connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
    die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
} else {
    echo "Connected successfully";
}

// Perform SQL queries or other operations here

// Close the connection
$conn->close();
?>