web2py vs PHP

In PHP

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<html><body><h1>Records</h1>  mysql_connect(localhost,username,password);
  @mysql_select_db(database) or die( "Unable to select database");
  $query="SELECT * FROM contacts";
  $result=mysql_query($query);
  mysql_close();
  $i=0;
  while ($i < mysql_numrows($result)) {
    $name=mysql_result($result,$i,"name");
    $phone=mysql_result($result,$i,"phone");
    echo "<b>$name</b><br>Phone:$phone<br><br><hr><br>";
    $i++;
  }
?></body></html>

In web2py

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def contacts():
    return HTML(BODY(H1('Records'),db().select(db.contacts.ALL)))

HTML, BODY, H1, etc. are helpers that build HTML tags. SQLTABLE is a special helper that can render as HTML TABLE any set of records.