The Meaning of .=

[ridiculous]

When do you want to prefix an equals sign with a period in PHP?

 

For example:

 

$rage .= "My girlfriend cheated on me. With a Mexican.";

[jordanwb]

$rage .= "My girlfriend cheated on me. With a Mexican.";

 

PHP would then add "My girlfriend cheated on me. With a Mexican." to the end of whatever is in the variable $rage. It's called Concatenation.

[Barand]

$str .= $anotherstr;

 

is same as

 

$str = $str . $anotherstr;

[Bladescope]

$str .= $anotherstr;

 

is same as

 

$str = $str . $anotherstr;

Example

 

$crime = "Professor Plum. ";
$crime .= "In the Library. ";
$crime .= "With the Candlestick.";
print $crime;
// Returns: Professor Plum. In the Library. With the Candlestick.

 

It should also be noted that if you use '.=' without declaring the variable beforehand, it generates a notice error. It isn't a major error, but it should be fixed for good practice and for clean scripts.

 

Declaring the variable means just to state it beforehand, i.e.

$var;

or

$var = 'something';

rather than just going straight into an undeclared variable using '.='

[ridiculous]

Thanks guys. Great info.