Some questiosn about PHP and BlueHost - Please Help

[codeshare]

I know this should probably go into the General thread, but some things are rather technical:


I don't have a site just yet with BlueHost (wanted to verify a few things first).

First, regarding PHP, is there a way that you can protect your PHP code so that visitors cannot read the code (for example, if you are connected to a MySQL database within your PHP code, etc)?

Second, With PHP and BlueHost, when you are uploading a file using a PHP script, can you allow the visitor to specify a folder to upload the file to, "on the fly" (while they are using an upload script) or do you have to hard code the location into your script?

Third, How protected are the password protected directories? Can someone just type in a URL that is located within a password protected directory (such as a file or folder within a password protected folder) and gain access, or do they still need a username and password to access files/folder inside of a protected directory?

Lastly, does BlueHost allow you to "install" third party PHP scripts (such as phpBB)?

[felgall]

BlueHost provides the same PHP as most web hosting providers do and it all works the same way as it does almost everywhere else.

Your visitors can't read the PHP code because it runs on the server and only the HTML that it generates is passed to the browser.

Where you let people upload files to via PHP depends on how you have written your script.

If you password protect a directory then the password is needed to access any files in that directory. PHP can't be used to password protect directories.

BlueHost provides SimpleScripts which makes it extremely easy to install selected third party scripts such as phpBB and keep the scripts completely up to date. They also provide more scripts via Fantastico but there some scripts are out of date as they rely on the third party owners of Fantastico updating the version that is available.