PHP Variables

What is a variable?

Well, Let me show you one:

$variable = "value";

This is an example of a php variable. Let’s deconstruct it together.

Different Parts of a Variable

$ : a variable starts with $

variable : name of the variable comes right after $

= : we assign the value to that variable with =

"value" : this can be anything. a number. a text. an object.

; : in PHP you should end an statement by ; otherwise you’ll get a syntax error

In php we don’t need to write the type of variables. Php does a great job figuring it out automatically

Do's and Don'ts

First Letter

The first letter of the variable name should be _ or a letter but after that you can have alphanumeric characters and underscores (A-z, 0-9, and _ ).

The variables below are all correct:

$_variable
$variable
$variabl3
$Var3

But this one is not and you'll get an error:

$3var

Case

Variable names are case-sensitive so the following variables are 3 different variables:

$var
$Var
$vAr

Assigning New Value

You can assign a new value to your variable easily

$x = “hello”;
// x is “hello”

now let’s change it

$x = 10;
// x is 10 now

As you can see not only we changed the value but also we changed the type. The first one was a string and the second one was a number. But we don’t get any errors.

Told you php does a great job taking care of types automatically.

https://youtu.be/Tmili-rOdJw

Conclusion

Now you know how to define variables in PHP.

I recommend you to open a PHP file and try defining different variables. Change their values and see if you'll get any errors.

If you have any suggestions, questions, or opinions, please contact me. I’m looking forward to hearing from you!

Key takeaways

• How to define variables in PHP
• Different Parts of a Variable
• Do's and Don'ts of working with variables