Apache Handlers: Running HTML As PHP

If you want to have your html files (*.htm, *.html etc) being run/parse by the web server as PHP files, here’s how you can achieve that.

Depending on how php is installed with your web server / web host, add this into your .htaccess file

For web servers using PHP as apache module:

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

For web servers running PHP as CGI:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .html .htm

Since I host with Hostgator which supports PHP5, instead of using the above, I had to use (notice the bolded 5)

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php5 .html .htm

And if’ you’re developing locally with XAMPP, you should use AddHandler instead of AddType

AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .html .htm