M2S2 - S1 - What Is A Control Structure
M2S2 - S1 - What Is A Control Structure
In simple terms, a control structure allows you to control the flow of code
execution in your application. Generally, a program is executed sequentially,
line by line, and a control structure allows you to alter that flow, usually
depending on certain conditions.
Control structures are core features of the PHP language that allow your script
to respond differently to different inputs or situations. This could allow your
script to give different responses based on user input, file contents, or some
other data.
As you can see in the above diagram, first a condition is checked. If the
condition is true, the conditional code will be executed. The important thing to
note here is that code execution continues normally after conditional code
execution.
• if
• else
• elseif
• switch
• while
• do - while
• for
• foreach
• and more
In the previous section, we learned the basics of control structures in PHP and
their usefulness in application development. In this section, we'll go through a
couple of important control structures that you'll end up using frequently in
your day-to-day application development.
If
Let's have a look at the following example to understand how it actually works.
1 <?php
2 $age = 50;
3
4 if ($age > 30)
5 {
6 echo "Your age is greater than 30!";
}
7 ?>
8
The above example should output the Your age is greater than
30! message since the expression evaluates to true. In fact, if you want to
execute only a single statement, the above example can be rewritten as
shown in the following snippet without brackets.
1 <?php
2 $age = 50;
3
4 if ($age > 30)
5 echo "Your age is greater than 30!";
?>
6
On the other hand, if you have more than one statements to execute, you
must use brackets, as shown in the following snippet.
1 <?php
if (is_array($user))
2 {
3 $user_id = isset($user['user_id']) ? $user['user_id'] : '';
4 $username = isset($user['username']) ? $user['username'] : '';
5 // and more statements...
}
6 ?>
7
8
Else
1
if (expression)
2 {
3 // code is executed if the expression evaluates to TRUE
4 }
5 else
{
6 // code is executed if the expression evaluates to FALSE
7 }
8
Let's revise the previous example to understand how it works.
01
02 <?php
$age = 50;
03
04 if ($age < 30)
05 {
06 echo "Your age is less than 30!";
07 }
08 else
{
09 echo "Your age is greater than or equal 30!";
10 }
11 ?>
12
So when you have two choices, and one of them must be executed, you can
use the if-else construct.
Else If
Let's study the basic structure of the elseif statement, as shown in the
following pseudo code.
01
02 if (expression1)
{
03
// code is executed if the expression1 evaluates to TRUE
04 }
05 elseif (expression2)
06 {
07 // code is executed if the expression2 evaluates to TRUE
}
08 elseif (expression3)
09 {
10 // code is executed if the expression3 evaluates to TRUE
11 }
12 else
{
13 // code is executed if the expression1, expression2 and expression3 evaluates to FAL
14 choice
15 }
16
Again, let's try to understand it using a real-world example.
01 <?php
02 $age = 50;
03
if ($age < 30)
04 {
05 echo "Your age is less than 30!";
06 }
07 elseif ($age > 30 && $age < 40)
08 {
echo "Your age is between 30 and 40!";
09 }
10 elseif ($age > 40 && $age < 50)
11 {
12 echo "Your age is between 40 and 50!";
}
13 else
14 {
15 echo "Your age is greater than 50!";
16 }
17 ?>
18
19
20
As you can see in the above example, we have multiple conditions, so we've
used a series of elseif statements. In the event that all if conditions
evaluate to false, it executes the code provided in the last else statement.
Switch
In the case of the elseif statement, you have a set of different conditions,
and an appropriate action will be executed based on a condition. On the other
hand, if you want to compare a variable with different values, you can use
the switch statement.
01 <?php
02 $favourite_site = 'Code';
03
04 switch ($favourite_site) {
05 case 'Business':
echo "My favourite site is business.tutsplus.com!";
06 break;
07 case 'Code':
08 echo "My favourite site is code.tutsplus.com!";
09 break;
10 case 'Web Design':
echo "My favourite site is webdesign.tutsplus.com!";
11 break;
12 case 'Music':
13 echo "My favourite site is music.tutsplus.com!";
14 break;
case 'Photography':
15 echo "My favourite site is photography.tutsplus.com!";
16 break;
17 default:
18 echo "I like everything at tutsplus.com!";
19 }
?>
20
21
22
23
As you can see in the above example, we want to check the value of
the $favourite_site variable, and based on the value of
the $favourite_site variable we want to print a message.
For each value you want to check with the $favourite_site variable, you
have to define the case block. If the value is matched with a case, the code
associated with that case block will be executed. After that, you need to use
the break statement to end code execution. If you don't use
the break statement, script execution will be continued up to the last block in
the switch statement.
Finally, if you want to execute a piece of code if the variable's value doesn't
match any case, you can define it under the default block. Of course, it's not
mandatory—it's just a way to provide a default case.
So that's the story of conditional control structures. We'll discuss loops in PHP
in the next section.
Loops
Loops in PHP are useful when you want to execute a piece of code repeatedly
until a condition evaluates to false. So code is executed repeatedly as long as
a condition evaluates to true, and as soon as the condition evaluates to false,
the script continues executing the code after the loop.
In this section, we'll go through the different types of loops supported in PHP.
While Loop
The while loop is used when you want to execute a piece of code repeatedly
until the while condition evaluates to false.
1 while (expression)
2 {
3 // code to execute as long as expression evaluates to TRUE
}
4
Let's have a look at a real-world example to understand how the while loop
works in PHP.
01
02 <?php
03 $max = 0;
04 echo $i = 0;
05 echo ",";
echo $j = 1;
06 echo ",";
07 $result=0;
08
09 while ($max < 10 )
10 {
11 $result = $i + $j;
12
$i = $j;
13 $j = $result;
14
15 $max = $max + 1;
16 echo $result;
17 echo ",";
}
18
?>
19
20
If you're familiar with the Fibonacci series, you might recognize what the
above program does—it outputs the Fibonacci series for the first ten numbers.
The while loop is generally used when you don't know the number of
iterations that are going to take place in a loop.
Do-While Loop
The do-while loop is very similar to the while loop, with the only difference
being that the while condition is checked at the end of the first iteration. Thus,
we can guarantee that the loop code is executed at least once, irrespective of
the result of the while expression.
1 do
2 {
3 // code to execute
} while (expression);
4
Let's go through a real-world to understand possible use-cases where you can
use the do-while loop.
01 <?php
02 $handle = fopen("file.txt", "r");
if ($handle)
03 {
04 do
05 {
06 $line = fgets($handle);
07
08 // process the line content
09
} while($line !== false);
10 }
11 fclose($handle);
12 ?>
13
14
In the above example, we're trying to read a file line by line. Firstly, we've
opened a file for reading. In our case, we're not sure if the file contains any
content at all. Thus, we need to execute the fgets function at least once to
check if a file contains any content. So we can use the do-while loop
here. do-while evaluates the condition after the first iteration of the loop.
For Loop
Generally, the for loop is used to execute a piece of code for a specific
number of times. In other words, if you already know the number of times you
want to execute a block of code, it's the for loop which is the best choice.
For Each
The foreach loop is used to iterate over array variables. If you have an array
variable, and you want to go through each element of that array,
the foreach loop is the best choice.
01
02 <?php
03 $fruits = array('apple', 'banana', 'orange', 'grapes');
04 foreach ($fruits as $fruit)
{
05 echo $fruit;
06 echo "<br/>";
07 }
08
09 $employee = array('name' => 'John Smith', 'age' => 30, 'profession' => 'Software Enginee
foreach ($employee as $key => $value)
10 {
11 echo sprintf("%s: %s</br>", $key, $value);
12 echo "<br/>";
13 }
14 ?>
15
If you want to access array values, you can use the first version of
the foreach loop as shown in the above example. On the other hand, if you
want to access both a key and a value, you can do it as shown in
the $employee example above.