Does a PHP file need to be attached to the HTML file?

Question

I know that CSS files need to attach to the html files, but what about PHP? Because when I try to test it, it asks me to make it a test server, but it never works. I know I'm missing. Please help. Thank you!
This is my html form:
<form action="form_process" method="post" name="contact_form">
<form class="form">
<p class="name">
<input type="text" name="name" id="name" placeholder="John Doe" />
<label for="web">Name</label>
</p>
<p class="email">
<input type="text" name="email" id="email" placeholder="[email protected]" />
<label for="email">Email</label>
</p>
<p class="phone">
<input type="text" name="phone" id="phone" placeholder="555-555-5555" />
<label for="phone">Phone</label>
</p>
<p class="text">
<textarea name="text" placeholder="Questions or Comments"></textarea>
</p>
<p class="submit">
<input type="submit" value="Send" />
</p>
</form>
This is my PHP:
<?php
$name = $_POST['name'];
$email = $_POST['email'];
$phone = $_POST['phone'];
$message = $_POST['text'];
$to = "[email protected]";
$subject = "New Message";
mail ($to, $subject, $message, "From: " . $name);
echo "Your message has been sent."
?>

Answer 1

No.  A Local Testing Server is software that you install on your local computer so you can parse PHP scripts to test them in your local browsers.  It's not very complicated.
Get one of the following Apache servers for your OS and follow the installation instructions.
WAMP for Windows
http://www.wampserver.com/en/
XAMPP for Windows
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html
XAMPP for Mac
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-macosx.html
MAMP for Mac
http://www.mamp.info/en/downloads/index.html
See Setting up a PHP environment in Dreamweaver
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/setup_php.html
Nancy O.