Introduction to PHP Operators

An operator is a symbol that performs operations on operands. In PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor), there are different types of operators depending on the number of operands they take. For example, urinary operators take only one operand. On the contrary, binary operators take two operands. <!--more-->

Prerequisites #

To follow along with this tutorial, you need to have:

• Xampp downloaded on your machine. I will guide you on how to download.
• A basic knowledge of PHP.
• A text editor like Visual Studio.

I will use Linux in this tutorial, but you are free to use Windows as well.

Table of contents #

• Installing Xampp
• Differences between an Operator and an Operand
• Creating a PHP file in Xampp
• Arithmetic Operators
• Comparison Operators
• String Operators
• Assignment Operators

Installing Xampp #

To execute PHP operators programs, you need to access a web server in which the PHP programs will be running. Therefore you need to either download LAMP, MAMP, or XAMPP depending on the Operating System that you are using. In my case, I am using Ubuntu Linux.

We will download the latest version of Xampp here.

After successfully downloading Xampp, navigate to where it was downloaded and open in terminal to install the package. In my case, it was downloaded in the downloads folder.

You need to first make the package executable using the chmod command before installing. To do that, execute the command below in the terminal.

sudo chmod 755 xampp-linux-x64-8.0.8-1-installer.run

You will not see any output after executing the command above. To verify that we have executed the permission, run the command below:

ls -l xampp-linux-x64-8.0.8-1-installer.run

Output #

-rwxr-xr-x 1 sarah sarah 159498085 Ado 28 23:22 xampp-linux-x64-8.0.8-1-installer.run

Now run the installer by executing the command below:

$ sudo ./xampp-linux-x64-8.0.8-1-installer.run

You should have something similar to the image below:

Continue clicking Next until you are done with the installation progress.

Once the installation is finished, move to the Manage Servers tab and click Start All to start all the services. You can change their status by selecting Start or Stop.

Alternatively, you can start the services by using the command below:

$ sudo /opt/lampp/lampp start

Output #

Starting XAMPP for Linux 8.0.5-0...
XAMPP: Starting Apache...ok.
XAMPP: Starting MySQL...ok.
XAMPP: Starting ProFTPD...ok.

Let's now verify that the installation was successful. Open your browser at http://localhost/dashboard. You should see something like this:

Congrats! You have successfully prepared the environment for your PHP Operators programs.

A folder /opt/lampp/htdocs has been created after installing Xampp. This is where we will create our PHP files.

Differences between an Operator and an Operand #

To understand the difference, let us look at the example below:

$num = 10 + 20;

In the example above, + is the operator while 10 and 20 are Operands. An Operator is a symbol used to perform operations on operands/variables, while Operand is the object being acted upon. For instance, 10 and 20 are being added in the above example.

$(dollar) sign is used to create a variable num which holds the values 10 and 20.

Creating a PHP file in Xampp #

Now that we know what an operator and an operand are, let us start working with them. To do that, we have to create a PHP file in xampp. Open /opt/lampp/htdocs folder by executing the command below:

cd /opt/lampp/htdocs

Let us create a folder operators in htdocs which we will use to store all our files. Execute the command below to create the operators folder:

sudo mkdir operators

To create a PHP file in /opt/lampp/htdocs/operators, use the command:

cd /opt/lampp/htdocs/operators 
sudo nano touch example.php

The above command will create a PHP file called example.php in the operators' folder. We will use this file later.

Arithmetic Operators #

These are operators that are used on the operator to execute arithmetic operations. There are various Arithmetic operators supported by PHP:

• Addition Operator (+) - It adds two operands.
• Subtraction Operator (-) - Subtracts the second operand from the first operand.
• Multiplication Operators (*) - This multiplies two operands.
• Division Operator (/) - Divides numerator by denominator.
• Increment operator (++) - Increases integer value by one.
• Decrement Operator (--) - Decreases an operator value by one.

Below is an example to demonstrate PHP Arithmetic operators. Open the file we created (example.php) using Gedit, add the following code snippet, and save. To open, navigate in /opt/lampp/htdocs/operators then run the command:

sudo gedit example.php

• Addition

<?php
$x=50;
$y=30;
echo "x+y = ";
echo $x+$y;
?>

To run this code snippet, open your browser at http://localhost/operators/example.php. You should have an output similar to the one below:

Output #

x+y = 80

Do the same for all the operators.

• Subtraction

<?php
$x=50;
$y=30;
echo "x-y = "; 
echo $x-$y;
?>

Output #

x-y = 20

• Multiplication

<?php
$x=50;
$y=30;
echo "x*y = ";
echo $x*$y;
?>

Output #

x*y = 1500

• Division

<?php
$x=50;
$y=30;
echo "x/y = ";
echo $x/$y;
?>

Output #

x/y = 1.6666666666667

• Increment

<?php
$x=50;
$y=30;
echo "++x = ";
echo $x++$y;
?>

Output #

++x = 51

• Decrement

<?php
$x=50;
$y=30;
echo "--x = ";
echo $x--$y;
?>

Output #

--x = 50

Comparison Operators #

Comparison Operators are used to comparing two operands. They either return a true or false Boolean value. If the comparison is correct, it returns true, else it returns false. PHP supports the following comparison operators:

• Equality (==) - If both operands are equal, return true; otherwise, return false.
• Identical (===) - Return true if both operands have the same data type and are equal; otherwise, return false.
• Not identical (!==) - If both operands are not equal or have the same data type, return true; otherwise, return false.
• Greater than (>) - Return true if the left operand is larger than the right operand; otherwise, return false.
• Greater than or equal to (>=) - Return true if the left operand is greater or equal to the right operand; otherwise, return false.
• Less than (<) - If the operand on the left is smaller than the operand on the right, return true; otherwise, return false.
• Less than or equal(<=) - If the left operand is smaller than or equal to the right operand, return true; otherwise, return false.

Let us have a look at a program that illustrate the working of comparison operators:

• Equality

<?php
$x = 100;  
$y = 100;
var_dump($x == $y) ; // returns true because values are equal.
?>

Output #

bool(true)

• Identical

<?php
$x = 100;  
$y = "100";
var_dump($x === $y).; // returns false because types are not the same.
?>

Output #

bool(false)

• Not identical

<?php
$x = 100;  
$y = "100";
var_dump($x !== $y); // returns true because types are not equal.
?>

Output #

bool(true)

• Greater than

<?php
$x = 100;  
$y = 100;
var_dump($x > $y); // returns false because $x is not greater than $y.
?>

Output #

bool(false)

• Less than or equal

<?php
$x = 100;  
$y = 100;
var_dump($x <= $y); // returns true because $x is less than or equal to $y.
?>

Output #

bool(true)

• Less than

<?php
$x = 100;  
$y = 100;
var_dump($x < $y); // returns false because $x is not less than $y.
?>

Output #

bool(false)

• Less than or equal

<?php
$x = 100;  
$y = 100;
var_dump($x <= $y); // returns true because $x is less than or equal to $y.
?>

Output #

bool(true)  

String Operators #

In PHP, we have two string operators. The concatenation operator ('.') Which returns the right and left arguments concatenated and the concatenation assignment operator ('.=') which appends the right-hand argument to the left-hand argument.

• Concatenation Operator. The example below demonstrates the use of a concatenation operator:

<?php
$a = "Hello ";
$b = $a . "World!"; // here, $b contains "Hello World!"
echo "$b";
?>

Output #

Hello World! 

• Concatenation assignment operator. The example below demonstrates the use of a concatenation assignment operator:

<?php
$a = "Good ";
$a .= "Work!"; // here, $a contains "Good Work!"
echo "$a";
?>

Output #

Good Work! 

Assignment Operators #

When writing a value to a variable in PHP, the assignment operators are used with numeric values. = operator assigns the left operand the value of the expression on the right. It is the main assignment operator. In PHP, we have the following types of assignments operators:

• += Addition - It adds and assigns a new value to a variable.
• -= Subtraction - It subtracts and assigns a new value to a value.
• *= Multiplication - It multiplies and assigns a new value to a value.
• /= Division - It divides and assigns a new value to a variable.
• %= modules - The modulus of two numbers is computed, and the result is assigned to the first.

Below is a program that illustrate the working of assignment operators:

• Addition

<?php
$x = 50; 
$x += 100; // addition
echo "$x";
?>

Output #

150

• Subtraction

<?php
$x1 = 100;
$x1-= 50; //subtraction
echo "$x1";
?>

Output #

50

• Multiplication

<?php
$x2 = 150;
$x2*= 2; // multiplacation
echo "$x2";
?>

Output #

300

• Division

<?
$x3 = 200;
$x3/= 2; //division
echo "$x3";
?>

Output #

100

• Modulus

<?php
$x4 = 250;
$x4/= 4; //modulus
echo "$x4";
?>

Output #

62.5 

Conclusion #

In this article, we have looked at:

1. How to downlaod Xampp and run it.
2. Definition of an operator and an operand.
3. How to create a PHP file in Xampp.
4. Different Operators.

Variables and functions are both used with operators to perform various operations.

That’s all folks! Happy Learning!

Further Reading #

• PHP Operators Guide
• Comparison Operators in PHP

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Peer Review Contributions by: Jerim Kaura