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Dan Neumann
Courses Plus Student 10,318 PointsWhen do I need to concatenate in php
I don't understand why this code works:
<?php
function hello($name) {
echo "Hello, $name";
}
hello('Hampton');
?>
I thought I had to concatenate every time there was a combination of strings and php elements ($name in this case).
2 Answers
Marcus Parsons
15,719 PointsHey Dan,
Concatenation does actually have to be done in certain circumstances such as inserting carriage returns/new lines or if you were calling two functions and using the results in some kind of output. See below for an example of this. There are more examples but these are common ones.
In this case, though, since we used double quotes for the string, you can use variables inside of the string with no need for concatenation.
Check out this example where concatenation is necessary:
<?php
function hello ($name) {
return "Hello, $name";
}
function goodbye ($name) {
return "goodbye, $name";
}
echo hello('Marcus') . ", and ". goodbye('Bobbert'). ".";
//outputs to the screen:
//Hello, Marcus, and goodbye, Bobbert.
?>
Dan Neumann
Courses Plus Student 10,318 PointsThanks - That's the first explanation I've heard for this. Is there a list of rules or a video where the difference is defined? I haven't heard any explanation of this in the php videos I have watched yet.
Marcus Parsons
15,719 PointsAs you progress further into learning PHP, you'll know when you need to use it, I promise. You'll probably end up using concatenation more often than inserting variable names into strings because concatenation is a very useful tool.
Dan Neumann
Courses Plus Student 10,318 PointsThanks Marcus - That's what I'll do.
Dan
Marcus Parsons
15,719 PointsWhen in doubt, Dan, try concatenation! :) If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to come on back to the forums. Happy Coding!