What is x executable permission for web file?

Question

I assign 774 permission to index.php and open in browser it works. So I confuse, the browsing action is a read or execute, or what is execute in web view

Answer 1

The execute action not run at your browser, but at the server side. The php file processed by server side interpreter: PHP.

When you access it from web browser(such as http://server/index.php ), the request will sent to server side program Apache, and Apache check the mine type, and detect it as "PHP", then Apache call PHP program to execute the index.php file, and once done, the Apache will return the result(HTML source) to web browser.

You needn't set X permission to .php files at server side, the Apache will run .php file automatically, but your Apache should install php module first.

The web browser only support HTML language, can't run PHP script at all.