Adobe AIR & PHP + MySQL

Question

Hello.

I am looking for a possibility to run a PHP + MySQL solution on a desktop.

• Can Adobe AIR accomplish that for me?
• Will the setup be able to access the COM port of the computer?

Answer 1

You could probably recreate what you have in mind with AIR, because AIR does let you render HTML and it includes a built-in database (sqlite), and the two can interoperate in a way that's not far removed from PHP/mysql. But the application logic would need to be in either ActionScript or JavaScript, which are the two languages AIR implements. If you're looking to use existing PHP then AIR won't be any help to you - AIR just deals with the client-side of things.

I assume that to get PHP executing on the desktop you'd need some flavor of wrapped PHP executable, unless there's some way of compiling PHP into an executable. I don't know if either capability exists, but I thought I'd comment on the AIR capabilities side of things since you didn't have an answer yet.

Answer 2

AIR does have offline storage and you can use SQLite.

MySQL will require a server so unless you're looking to connect to a server for your queries, I'd look elsewhere.

Also, @fenomas is right. You can not use PHP to write an AIR app.