All variables in PHP are denoted with a leading dollar sign ($).
The value of a variable is the value of its most recent assignment.
Variables are assigned with the = operator, with the variable on the left-hand side and the expression to be evaluated on the right.
Variables can, but do not need, to be declared before assignment.
Variables in PHP do not have intrinsic types – a variable does not know in advance whether it will be used to store a number or a string of characters.
Variables used before they are assigned have default values.
PHP does a good job of automatically converting types from one to another when necessary.
PHP variables are Perl-like.

PHP has a total of eight data types which we use to construct our variables −

Integers − are whole numbers, without a decimal point, like 4195.
Doubles − are floating-point numbers, like 3.14159 or 49.1.
Booleans − have only two possible values either true or false.
NULL − is a special type that only has one value: NULL.
Strings − are sequences of characters, like ‘PHP supports string operations.’
Arrays − are named and indexed collections of other values.
Objects − are instances of programmer-defined classes, which can package up both other kinds of values and functions that are specific to the class.
Resources − are special variables that hold references to resources external to PHP (such as database connections).

The first five are simple types, and the next two (arrays and objects) are compound – the compound types can package up other arbitrary values of arbitrary type, whereas the simple types cannot.

We will explain only simple data type in this chapters. Array and Objects will be explained separately.

Integers

They are whole numbers, without a decimal point, like 4195. They are the simplest type .they correspond to simple whole numbers, both positive and negative. Integers can be assigned to variables, or they can be used in expressions, like so −

$int_var = 12345;$another_int = -12345 + 12345;

Integer can be in decimal (base 10), octal (base 8), and hexadecimal (base 16) format. Decimal format is the default, octal integers are specified with a leading 0, and hexadecimals have a leading 0x.

For most common platforms, the largest integer is (2**31 . 1) (or 2,147,483,647), and the smallest (most negative) integer is . (2**31 . 1) (or .2,147,483,647).

Doubles

They like 3.14159 or 49.1. By default, doubles print with the minimum number of decimal places needed. For example, the code −

 <?php

   $many = 2.2888800;   $many_2 = 2.2111200;

   $few = $many + $many_2;

      print("$many + $many_2 = $few <br>");

?>

It produces the following browser output −

2.28888 + 2.21112 = 4.5

Boolean

They have only two possible values either true or false. PHP provides a couple of constants especially for use as Booleans: TRUE and FALSE, which can be used like so −

if (TRUE)   print("This will always print<br>"); 

else   print("This will never print<br>");

Interpreting other types as Booleans

Here are the rules for determine the “truth” of any value not already of the Boolean type −

If the value is a number, it is false if exactly equal to zero and true otherwise.
If the value is a string, it is false if the string is empty (has zero characters) or is the string “0”, and is true otherwise.
Values of type NULL are always false.
If the value is an array, it is false if it contains no other values, and it is true otherwise. For an object, containing a value means having a member variable that has been assigned a value.
Valid resources are true (although some functions that return resources when they are successful will return FALSE when unsuccessful).
Don’t use double as Booleans.

Each of the following variables has the truth value embedded in its name when it is used in a Boolean context.

$true_num = 3 + 0.14159;$true_str = "Tried and true"$true_array[49] = "An array element";

$false_array = array();

$false_null = NULL;

$false_num = 999 - 999;

$false_str = "";

NULL

NULL is a special type that only has one value: NULL. To give a variable the NULL value, simply assign it like this −

$my_var = NULL;

The special constant NULL is capitalized by convention, but actually it is case insensitive; you could just as well have typed −

$my_var = null;

A variable that has been assigned NULL has the following properties −

It evaluates to FALSE in a Boolean context.
It returns FALSE when tested with IsSet() function.

Strings

They are sequences of characters, like “PHP supports string operations”. Following are valid examples of string

$string_1 = "This is a string in double quotes";

$string_2 = 'This is a somewhat longer, singly quoted string';

$string_39 = "This string has thirty-nine characters";

$string_0 = ""; // a string with zero characters

Singly quoted strings are treated almost literally, whereas doubly quoted strings replace variables with their values as well as specially interpreting certain character sequences.

<?php

$variable = “name”; $literally = ‘My $variable will not print!’; print($literally); print “<br>”; $literally = “My $variable will print!”; print($literally);?>

This will produce following result −

My $variable will not print!My name will print

There are no artificial limits on string length – within the bounds of available memory, you ought to be able to make arbitrarily long strings.

Strings that are delimited by double quotes (as in “this”) are preprocessed in both the following two ways by PHP −

Certain character sequences beginning with backslash (\) are replaced with special characters
Variable names (starting with $) are replaced with string representations of their values.

The escape-sequence replacements are −

\n is replaced by the newline character
\r is replaced by the carriage-return character
\t is replaced by the tab character
\$ is replaced by the dollar sign itself ($)
\” is replaced by a single double-quote (“)
\\ is replaced by a single backslash (\)

Here Document

You can assign multiple lines to a single string variable using here document −

<?php   $channel =<<<_XML_      <channel>   

<title>What's For Dinner</title>

<link>http://menu.example.com/ </link>    

<description>Choose what to eat tonight.</description>   

</channel>

_XML_;

   echo <<<END

This uses the “here document” syntax to output multiple lines with variable interpolation. Note that the here document terminator must appear on a line with just a semicolon. no extra whitespace!
END; print $channel;?>

This will produce following result −

This uses the “here document” syntax to outputmultiple lines with variable interpolation. Notethat the here document terminator must appear on aline with just a semicolon. no extra whitespace!

<channel>

<title>What's For Dinner<title>

<link>http://menu.example.com/<link>

<description>Choose what to eat tonight.</description>

</channel>

Variable Scope

Scope can be defined as the range of availability a variable has to the program in which it is declared. PHP variables can be one of four scope types −

Local variables
Function parameters
Global variables
Static variables

Variable Naming

Rules for naming a variable is −

Variable names must begin with a letter or underscore character.
A variable name can consist of numbers, letters, underscores but you cannot use characters like + , – , % , ( , ) . & , etc

There is no size limit for variables.

PHP – Constants Types

A constant is a name or an identifier for a simple value. A constant value cannot change during the execution of the script. By default, a constant is case-sensitive. By convention, constant identifiers are always uppercase. A constant name starts with a letter or underscore, followed by any number of letters, numbers, or underscores. If you have defined a constant, it can never be changed or undefined.

To define a constant you have to use define() function and to retrieve the value of a constant, you have to simply specifying its name. Unlike with variables, you do not need to have a constant with a $. You can also use the function constant() to read a constant’s value if you wish to obtain the constant’s name dynamically.

constant() function

As indicated by the name, this function will return the value of the constant.

This is useful when you want to retrieve value of a constant, but you do not know its name, i.e. It is stored in a variable or returned by a function.

constant() example

<?php

   define("MINSIZE", 50);

  

   echo MINSIZE;

   echo constant("MINSIZE"); // same thing as the previous line

?>

Only scalar data (boolean, integer, float and string) can be contained in constants.

Differences between constants and variables are

There is no need to write a dollar sign ($) before a constant, where as in Variable one has to write a dollar sign.
Constants cannot be defined by simple assignment, they may only be defined using the define() function.
Constants may be defined and accessed anywhere without regard to variable scoping rules.
Once the Constants have been set, may not be redefined or undefined.

Valid and invalid constant names

// Valid constant names

define(“ONE”, “first thing”);

define(“TWO2”, “second thing”);

define(“THREE_3”, “third thing”);

define(“__THREE__”, “third value”);

// Invalid constant names

define(“2TWO”, “second thing”);

PHP Magic constants

PHP provides a large number of predefined constants to any script which it runs.

There are five magical constants that change depending on where they are used. For example, the value of __LINE__ depends on the line that it’s used on in your script. These special constants are case-insensitive and are as follows −

A few “magical” PHP constants are given below −

Sr.No	Name & Description
1	__LINE__ The current line number of the file.
2	__FILE__ The full path and filename of the file. If used inside an include,the name of the included file is returned. Since PHP 4.0.2, __FILE__ always contains an absolute path whereas in older versions it contained relative path under some circumstances.
3	__FUNCTION__ The function name. (Added in PHP 4.3.0) As of PHP 5 this constant returns the function name as it was declared (case-sensitive). In PHP 4 its value is always lowercased.
4	__CLASS__ The class name. (Added in PHP 4.3.0) As of PHP 5 this constant returns the class name as it was declared (case-sensitive). In PHP 4 its value is always lowercased.
5	__METHOD__ The class method name. (Added in PHP 5.0.0) The method name is returned as it was declared (case-sensitive).

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