Newbie question about variables

Anon

I purchased the Wrox 'Beginning PHP' book and am reading about variables.

The give the example:
$actor = "Marlon Brando";

I don't understand why I would want to go thru the trouble of coding this variable when I can simply enter 'Marlon Brando' in HTML text.

I know there must be a very good reason, but I just can't see one right now.

Can someone explain why I would want to go thru the trouble of coding text variables when I can simply enter the text without setting it up as a variable.

I need some kinda pragmatic reason.

Thx.

Anon

Normally you would never actually assign a value to a variable, only to output it. Variables are a method of storing data, to be modified, accumulated, and many other things. Usually your variables will obtain their values from database queries (that's the more advanced stuff).

Keep on reading and you'll understand soon enough!

Anon

Okay, thanks again.

So I wasn't totally off base.

Anon

Plus adding on to Sevex, you cannot start to run before you can walk. So you have to start somewhere and starting with a simple variable that will not be confusing is better than having $sven=($slick/31)(2+9^{$katz/24)^2);} See what I mean? Its better to get the fundamentals down before jumping to the "hard" stuff. Thats just my 2.43 Cents
Chad

Anon

Yes, I totally agree, and knew that's what the book was doing. Nut for some reason, I had a problem learning something that I could see use for. I knew it would come later, but I would've like them to give me a peek over the mountain .. to see where we were going.

Thx for the post.

Anon

And lastly, an easy and useful example. Say you wanted to control the bgcolor of tables throughout your website. You might code:
$bg = "3366CC";

And then wherever creating a table... bgcolor="<?php echo $bg;?>"

Then, you can simply change the $bg to a different color and, voila! your entire website color changes!