quot;Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!" That’s quite an expression!
Fun as it may be, however, it’s not the sort of expression we’re interested in
here. In PHP there are two types of expression for us to look at. One is
something called a "regular expression", which is used in the manipulation of
text. We’ll talk more about them later in the series. The other is more
mathematical in nature, expressing operations to be performed on values and
variables. Here’s a simple example:
c = a + b
Assuming a and b are numbers (remember data types? — the
result would be different if they were strings — more about that later) this expression would add a
and b and put the sum into c (remember again, that the equals sign here makes
this an assignment instruction.) In the expression a + b the plus sign is
an arithmetic operator. Here are some more operators:
Arithmetic Operators:
| + | Addition | Add two values |
| – | Subtraction | Subtract the second value from the first |
| * | Multiplication | Multiply two values |
| / | Division | Divide the first value by the second |
| % | Modulus | Divide the first value by the second and return only the remainder (for example, 7 % 5 yields 2) |
Comparison Operators:
| = = | Equal | Checks for equal values |
| = = = | Identical | Checks for equal values and data types |
| ! = | Not Equal | Checks for values not equal |
| ! = = | Not Identical | Checks for values not equal or not the same data type |
| < | Less than | Checks for one value being less than the second |
| > | Greater than | Checks for one value being greater than the second |
| < = | Less than or Equal to | Checks for on value being less than or equal to the second |
| > = | Greater than or Equal to | Checks for on value being greater than or equal to the second |
Logical Operators:
| And | Checks if two or more statements are true |
| && | Same as And |
| Or | Checks if at least one of two statements is true |
| || | Same as Or |
| Xor | Checks if only one of two statements is true |
| ! | Checks if a statement is not true |
Increment and Decrement Operators:
| ++value | Pre-Increment | Adds 1 to the value before processing the expression which uses the value |
| –value | Pre-Decrement | Subtracts 1 from the value before processing the expression which uses the value |
| value++ | Post-Increment | Adds 1 to the value after processing the expression which uses the value |
| value– | Post-Decrement | Subtracts 1 from the value after processing the expression which uses the value |
The Concatenate Operator
I get in trouble all the time because I ask how this can be considered an
"operator", but trust e, the world thinks it is! The concatenate
"operator" is a period (full stop to the English English!) It simply says
"join this to this", so that
$parta = "This is part one "
$partb = "of a sentence!"
print $parta.$partb
prints out "This is part one of a sentence!"
"Huh?" I say! "That’s not a part of a sentence — that’s a whole
sentence!!" (Please forgive my pedantic humor!)
Combined Operators:
There are some combination operators that you may see used (or may use!)
There are those who argue that these combination operators provide an advantage
because they reduce typing and reduce the final size of the code. In my
humble opinion, however, they don’t represent the way that most of us think of
things, and are therefore somewhat confusing. See what you think.
You remember from earlier examples that = is an assignment operator:
$a = 5
assigns the value 5 to $a. This assignment can be combined with
some other operators like this:
$a += 5
If $a already had a value of 5, then after this instruction it would be 10,
as if the full instruction was:
$a = $a + 5
Valid combinations include: += -= *= /=
Precedence and Associativity.
Think about this operation:
$a = 7 – 4 + 1
If the minus happens before the plus, the result would be 4. If the
plus happens first, the result is 2. Since predictability is essential, an
order of precedence was established, along with something called associativity.
The order of precedence establishes a "rank" for operators, where those with the
highest rank will be evaluated first. When there are several operators of
the same rank, they will be processed from left to right if they are left
associative, and right to left if they are right associative. Some
operators, such as the comparison operators, have neither left nor right
associativity.
The increment and decrement operators ( ++ and — ) are right
associative, while the others I have discussed here are left associative.
The order of precedence, from highest to lowest (with those of equal precedence
on the same line) is as follows:
++ —
* / %
+ –
|
&&
| |
and
xor
or
You can override the order of precedence but wrapping part of an expression
in parentheses. The innermost parentheses are processed first, so that:
(7 – 4) + 1 will give a result of 4
7 – (4 + 1) will give a result of 2
2 + 3 * 3 will give a result of 11
2 + (3 * 3) will also give 11
(2 + 3) * 3 will give a result of 15
1 + 3 + 3 * 2 will give a result of 10
1 + ((3 + 3) * 2) will give a result of 13
(1 + (3 + 3)) * 2 will give a result of 14
I like to use parentheses whenever I create a complex expression so that it
is easier for me to see what’s going on when I come back to some code that I
originally wrote months or years ago. Following this simple rule makes
your code closer to self documenting and make you your own best friend!
