the " . " in php...

[bobchazbo]

What is the period "." in php?

I've seen it in quite a few example statements, but I can't figure what it means. Is it a comma, or newline, or what.

An example bit of code:

function add_some_extra(&$string)
{
$string .= 'and something extra.';

........... other stuff here....

But what is .= ?

Thanks!

[planetsim]

It pretty much extends the variable so instead of this

$hi="hi";
$hi="me";
$hi will only ouput hi

and if you did this

$hi="hi";
$hi=."me";

should output hi me.

[Rohan_Hill]

No, it should be $hi .= "me"; you got the . and the = back to front.
Also, you can use the . like this:

$variable3 = $variable1 . $variable2;

That will put $variable1 and $variable2 into $variable3 one after the other 🙂

[bobchazbo]

So the DOT , . , concatenates or pushes onto the variable.

that is... if

$var_a = "A";
$var_b = "B";

$var_a .= $var_b; // a and b => a (and equals)

echo "var_a =", $vara;

// gets var_a =AB ?

[planetsim]

Yea i know.. Woops. Oh well i was doing it quick i had to go quickly.

[bobchazbo]

Thanks for the help!

[arelgee]

I found your post interesting because I am only a few pages into into my php tutorial and the . and .= are early entries in it.
I am new to php but have found it easier to learn because of C++.
The . is what php uses where C uses the +.
$Line1 = 'Hello';
$Line2 = 'There';
$Line3 = $Line1 . $Line2;
echo $Line3 produces "HelloThere"// Oops, forget the space!!!!

The .= is the C +=.
$Line1 = 'Hello ';// put in the space this time
$Line1 .= 'There';
echo $Line1; now outputs "Hello There" (and eliminated 2 vars)

[bobchazbo]

" +=" I remember that. More intuitive than .= I think.
Thanks

[pyro]

Originally posted by bobchazbo
" +=" I remember that. More intuitive than .= I think.
Thanks

I agree with that. I wonder why PHP decided to us . as the concatenator? Why not follow the stardard and use + like everything else??

[ereptur]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think PHP got the "." from Perl.

Of course, I could just be smoking a ton of crack too.

[pyro]

Yes, you are correct. Guess that makes two... 😃 I'm used to javascript/C which use the + as the concatenator.