w3resource

PHP for Loop

Description

The PHP for loop allows the user to put all the loop-related statements (i.e. INITIALIZER; CONDITION; INCREMENTOR or DECREMENTOR) in one place. The structure is similar to C language.

Syntax

for ( initialize counter ; test counter ; increment counter)
{
execute the statement;
}
  • initialize counter : Initialize the loop counter value.
  • test counter : Verify the loop counter whether the condition is true.
  • increment counter : Increasing the loop counter value.
  • execute the statement : Execute php statements.

Alternatively, you can write for loop statement using the following syntax also.

for (expr1; expr2; expr3):
statement
...
endfor;

Pictorial representation of for loop

php for loop

Example:

The following example displays the numbers between 0 to 5.

<?php
for ($xint=0; $xint<=5; $xint++)
{
echo "Number is : $xint <br />";
}
?>

Output:

Number is : 0 
Number is : 1 
Number is : 2 
Number is : 3 
Number is : 4
Number is : 5

View the example in the browser

You can execute for in the following ways also. 

<?php
for ($xint = 1; ; $xint++) {
if ($i >= 5) {
break;
}
echo $xint;
}
?>

 

<?php
$xint = 1;
for (; ; )
{
if ($xint >= 5)
{
break;
}
echo $xint;
$xint++;
}
?>

Example: Counting number of times a word present in a sentence.

<?php
$text="The quick brown Fox jumps over the lazy Dog";
$words = explode(" ", $text); // explode function looks for " " and creates an array, where each word is an element of the array
$now = count($words);
$j = 0;
for($i=0; $i<$now; $i++)
{
if ($words[$i] == "the" or $words[$i] == "The")
{
$j =  $j+1;
}
}
echo $j;
?>

Output:

2

View the example in the browser

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Next: foreach statement



PHP: Tips of the Day

Members of objects or classes can be accessed using the object operator (->) and the class operator (::).

Example:

class MyClass {
 public $a = 1;
 public static $b = 2;
 const C = 3;
 public function d() { return 4; }
 public static function e() { return 5; }
}
$object = new MyClass();
var_dump($object->a); // int(1)
var_dump($object::$b); // int(2)
var_dump($object::C); // int(3)
var_dump(MyClass::$b); // int(2)
var_dump(MyClass::C); // int(3)
var_dump($object->d()); // int(4)
var_dump($object::d()); // int(4)
var_dump(MyClass::e()); // int(5)
$classname = "MyClass"; 
var_dump($classname::e()); // also works! int(5)

Note that after the object operator, the $ should not be written ($object->a instead of $object->$a). For the class operator, this is not the case and the $ is necessary. For a constant defined in the class, the $ is never used.

Also note that var_dump(MyClass::d()); is only allowed if the function d() does not reference the object:

class MyClass {
 private $a = 1;
 public function d() {
 return $this->a;
 }
}
$object = new MyClass();
var_dump(MyClass::d()); // Error!

This causes a 'PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Using $this when not in object context'

These operators have left associativity, which can be used for 'chaining':

class MyClass {
 private $a = 1;

 public function add(int $a) {
 $this->a += $a;
 return $this;
 }

 public function get() {
 return $this->a;
 }
}
$object = new MyClass();
var_dump($object->add(4)->get()); // int(5)

These operators have the highest precedence (they are not even mentioned in the manual), even higher that clone. Thus:

class MyClass {
 private $a = 0;
 public function add(int $a) {
 $this->a += $a;
 return $this;
 }
 public function get() {
 return $this->a;
 }
}
$o1 = new MyClass();
$o2 = clone $o1->add(2);
var_dump($o1->get()); // int(2)
var_dump($o2->get()); // int(2)

The value of $o1 is added to before the object is cloned!

Note that using parentheses to influence precedence did not work in PHP version 5 and older (it does in PHP 7):

// using the class MyClass from the previous code
$o1 = new MyClass();
$o2 = (clone $o1)->add(2); // Error in PHP 5 and before, fine in PHP 7
var_dump($o1->get()); // int(0) in PHP 7
var_dump($o2->get()); // int(2) in PHP 7