Here is a list of keywords that you don’t often see in code, don’t let these PHP gems become extinct, start using them in forums, books and your own code.
Long Script Tags
I bet you’ve seen these three forms of short tags: <% %>, <? ?> and <?php ?>, while people refer to the latter as the long tags there is actually a longer tag similar to javascript’s
<script language="php"> // all your php code can go here </script>
Don’t worry, your code is still parsed by the server so no one will see it.
Even Shorter Comment Tags
PHP has double back slashes // for single lines and a backslash and asterisk for multiple line comments, but it also has the pound symbol for single lines.
# This is a comment
End Tags For Flow Of Control
I learned about these when I started using CodeIgniter, they are great for when you have PHP embedded into HTML. Take a look at how clean they can make your code look, and understandable if you are working with a designer who might not know PHP.
<html> <head> </head> <body> <?php foreach($rows as $user): ?> <li><?php echo $user['name']?></li> <?php endforeach; ?> </body> </html>
There is also endif, endwhile and more here.
Dynamic Variable Names
PHP is a dynamic language, but I didn’t know it could be this dynamic! You can use strings and variables to make variables. To see what I mean take a look at and run this code if you don’t believe me.
$part1='user_';
$part2='name';
${$part1.$part2}='DragonFly';
echo $user_name;
This is pretty cool but I’ll tell you thing, if you adopt this syntax I just hope I never have to debug your code!
While Loop That Looks Like For
This involves incrementing your counter variable in a while loop when you evaluate it. Be careful though, this syntax will increment your counter variable EVERY time it gets compared.
While Loop That Looks Like For Loop
$i=0;
while($i++<10)
{
// do your thing here
}
Those where all the "jewels" I could think of, but I bet you know of more, let us know of them in the comments and tell us which of these you are going to start using.