PHP not working

[simonstamp]

I am new to PHP I have just downloaded XAMPP everything is working in the status and I can access the index page on localhost however PHP files are not working. I have put them in the htdocs folder. HTML pages read from here but not PHP. What am I doing wrong??
Many Thanks

Si

[Izzy]

How are you trying to read a php file?

Try typing in your browser http://localhost/yourfile.php

BTW what do you see when you type http://localhost and http://127.0.0.1 in your browser?

php coded files have to be parsed by the web server.

[Altrea]

Maybe you use short_tags

<?
/* PHP here */
?>

instead of

<?php
/* PHP here */
?>

?