There are two string operators for joining character strings in PHP; the concatenating assignment operator and the concatenation operator.

One of the most frequently used code in PHP or any programming language is the code that will increment or decrement the value of a variable. This code or expression is used in programs as simple as a page counter or as complicated as credit card processing.

The PHP break statement is placed within the code of a loop statement to cause your program to break out of the loop statement. Below is an example of a break statement that has been added to a loop statement.

We will use the fread( ), filesize( ) and file_get_contents( ) functions to read the contents of a file into a string.

An associative array uses index keys but these keys are not numeric as in the regular array. The keys in an associative array are usually character strings.

The magic of the PHP static statement is that it allows a function to remember the value of a local variable for the next time the function is called. In this tutorial you will learn how to use the PHP static statement to give a PHP function some memory.

The PHP constant is very similar to a PHP variable in that it is used to store a value but, unlike a variable, the value cannot be changed. This can be very important when coding PHP programs.

There are basically two types of PHP functions. The first type is the built-in function. The second type of function is the user defined function. These are the functions that you write yourself. Then, you can call it into your program any time by coding a function call.

The for statement is used to control a loop within your PHP program. It works like the while and do..while statements that we discussed in previous tutorials. The for statement tests an expression. If that expression is true the program will execute the task within the loop. Here is the basic code.

When you are ready to work with the MySQL database in your PHP programs, the first thing you must do is connect to (or identify yourself to) the MySQL server. Here is the PHP function you will use to open a connection to the MySQL server.