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PHP: Tutorial - Page 3
Including Other Files
Include a header and footer page for a website using the include keyword. PHP exits PHP mode when
a file is included using include.
<!-- header.html -->
<html>
<head>
<title>PHP INCLUDE EXAMPLE</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
// echo_output.php
echo $output;
?>
<!-- footer.html -->
</body>
</html>
<?php
include "header.html";
$output = `ls -al`;
echo '<pre>';
include "echo_output.php";
echo '</pre>';
include "footer.html";
?>
Functions
PHP has a huge library of built-in functions. This tutorial does not cover everything.
Variable Functions
Use the isset function to determine if a variale is set to a value.
<?php
$string;
$set = isset($string);
echo "\$string is set? $set";
?>
Use the unset function to free the memory the variable is using.
<?php
$string = 'how now brown cow';
unset($string);
?>
Use the var_dump function to dump information out about a variable or array.
<?php
$string = 'how now brown cow';
var_dump($string);
?>
String Functions
The strlen function returns the length of a string.
<?php
$string = 'how now brown cow';
$len = strlen($string);
echo $len;
?>
To remove the whitespace at the beginning and end of a string, use trim.
<?php
$string = ' how now brown cow ';
$string = trim($string);
echo $string;
?>
To remove the whitespace at the beginning of a string, use ltrim.
<?php
$string = ' how now brown cow';
$string = ltrim($string);
echo $string;
?>
To remove the whitespace at the end of a string, use rtrim.
<?php
$string = 'how now brown cow ';
$string = rtrim($string);
echo $string;
?>
Use str_replace to replace text in a string. It takes three parameters: the text to search for, the text to replace it with,
and the string to work with. It is case sensitive. The case insensitive version is stri_replace.
<?php
$string = 'how now brown cow';
$string = str_replace('cow', 'dog', $string);
echo $string;
?>
To replace just a single character in the string use the curly braces {}.
<?php
$string = 'how now brown cow';
$string{0} = 'H';
echo $string;
?>
Extract part of a string using substr. The first parameter is a string, the second is the start position, and the third is the
length which is optional.
<?php
$string = 'how now brown cow';
echo substr($string, 4);
echo substr($string, 4, 3);
?>
Use strpos to find the position of a substring inside a string. It returns false if the substring is not found.
<?php
$string = 'how now brown cow';
$i = strpos($string, 'cow');
if($i === false)
echo 'cow not found';
else
echo "cow at position $i";
?>
Array Functions
PHP makes working with arrays a breeze with functions that can sort, filter, shuffle and intersect them.
To return the number of elements in the array, use the count function.
<?php
$arr = array(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6);
$c = count($arr);
echo $c;
?>
To strip all the duplicate values from an array, use the array_unique function.
<?php
$arr = array(0, 0, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6);
$arr = array_unique($arr);
foreach($arr as $i) {
echo $i;
}
?>
To randomize the order of the elements in an array, use shuffle. shuffle does not return a value.
<?php
$arr = array(0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6);
shuffle($arr);
foreach($arr as $i) {
echo $i;
}
?>
To determine if a value is in an array, use in_array.
<?php
$arr = array(0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6);
$found = in_array(3, $arr);
if($found === true) {
echo '3 is in the array';
}
else {
echo '3 is not in the array';
}
?>
To create a new array based on the keys of an existing array use array_keys.
<?php
$arr = array('color1' => 'red', 'color2' => 'green', 'color3' => 'blue', 'color4' => 'orange', 'color5' => 'yellow', 'color6' => 'black', 'color7' => 'pink');
$keys = array_keys($arr);
foreach($keys as $key => $value) {
echo "$key = $value\n";
}
?>
To create a new array based on the values of an existing array use array_values.
<?php
$arr = array('color1' => 'red', 'color2' => 'green', 'color3' => 'blue', 'color4' => 'orange', 'color5' => 'yellow', 'color6' => 'black', 'color7' => 'pink');
$keys = array_values($arr);
foreach($keys as $key => $value) {
echo "$key = $value\n";
}
?>
To sort an array use asort to sort by the array values and ksort to sort by the array keys. To reverse sort use
arsort and krsort, respectively. These function do not return a value as they do their work in place.
<?php
$arr = array('color3' => 'red', 'color2' => 'green', 'color1' => 'blue', 'color0' => 'orange', 'color5' => 'yellow', 'color6' => 'black', 'color4' => 'pink');
foreach($keys as $key => $value) {
echo "$key = $value\n";
}
asort($arr);
foreach($keys as $key => $value) {
echo "$key = $value\n";
}
ksort($arr);
foreach($keys as $key => $value) {
echo "$key = $value\n";
}
?>
To turn array elements into variables, use the extract function. It takes three parameters: the array to extract, a constant
telling how to prefix the variables, and the prefix to give the name of the variables. extract does not return a value. The
second parameter must be one or more of the following.
- EXTR_OVERWRITE: if the variable exists already then overwrite it.
- EXTR_SKIP: if the variable already exists then skip it moving on to the next one.
- EXTR_PREFIX_SAME: if the variable already exists then use the prefix specified in the third parameter.
- EXTR_PREFIX_ALL: prefixes all variables with the prefix specified in the third parameter regardless of whether the variable exists already.
- EXTR_PREFIX_INVALID: uses a prefix only if the variable name start with a number.
- EXTR_IF_EXISTS: extracts only variables that already exist.
<?php
$arr = array('color3' => 'red', 'color2' => 'green', 'color1' => 'blue', 'color0' => 'orange', 'color5' => 'yellow', 'color6' => 'black', 'color4' => 'pink');
extract($arr, EXTR_PREFIX_ALL, 'arr');
echo $arr_color3;
echo $arr_color2;
echo $arr_color6;
?>
User Defined Functions
With functions, organized and reusable code can be created. They make code more readable and without them it is not possible to write easily maintainable code because there are identical blocks of code in multiple places.
Declare a function with the function keyword followed by the name of the function and any parameters are inside parentheses. Here
is a function declared with a single parameter. Two functions cannot share the same name.
<?php
function square_it($number) {
return $number * $number;
}
$value = 2;
$squared = square_it($value);
print $squared; // prints 4
?>
Here is a function declaration with two parameters.
<?php
function add_them($num1, $num2) {
return $num1 + $num2;
}
$val1 = 3;
$val2 = 4;
$added = add_them($val1, $val2);
print $added; // prints 7
?>
Non-object values being passed into a function are passed by value not by reference. Use the & symbol to pass a variable by reference.
<?php
function add_one(&$number) {
$number++;
}
$value = 1;
add_one($value);
print $value; // prints 2
?>
