SRI KRISHNA COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

Kuniamuthur, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India

An Autonomous Institution, Affiliated to Anna University,
Accredited by NAAC with “A” Grade & Accredited by NBA (CSE, ECE, IT, MECH ,EEE, CIVIL& MCT)

Course : 21CSI504 – PHP and JS Framework

Module : 1
Topic : PHP Data Types
Faculty : Dr. S. Karthikeyini
Department : M.Tech – Computer Science & Engineering

1
 Topics Covered

▪ PHP Data Type

▪ Integer
▪ Float
▪ Boolean
▪ String
▪ Array
▪ Object
▪ Null
▪ Constant

2
 PHP Data Types

• Just like JavaScript, PHP has data types.

• Like JavaScript, PHP is known as a

“loosely typed” language. That means it
decides the data type dynamically. This
means variables storing data can change
types.
 PHP Data Types
o Variables can store data of different types, and different
data types can do different things.
o PHP supports the following data types:
• String
• Integer
• Float (floating point numbers - also called double)
• Boolean
• Array
• Object
• NULL
• Resource
PHP Data Types
 PHP Integer

• An integer is a number without decimals.

• Rules for integers:
• An integer must have at least one digit (0-9)
• An integer cannot contain comma or blanks
• An integer must not have a decimal point
• An integer can be either positive or negative
• Integers can be specified in three formats: decimal (10-
based), hexadecimal (16-based - prefixed with 0x) or
octal (8-based - prefixed with 0)
 Example
<?php Output:
$x = 5985; int(5985)
var_dump($x); int(-345)
echo "<br>"; int(140)
$x = -345; // negative number int(39
var_dump($x);
echo "<br>";
$x = 0x8C; // hexadecimal number
var_dump($x);
echo "<br>";
$x = 047; // octal number
var_dump($x); The var_dump() function dumps information about one
or more variables. The information holds type and value
?> of the variable(s).The PHP var_dump() function returns the
data type and value of variables:
 Integer

o The integer data type is used to specify a numeric value

without a fractional component.
o You can declare as given below

Integer $variable;

$variable = 10;
 Real Number

o It is also known as a floating number or floating point

number.
o It is not a whole number and has fractions such as 1.22,
2.45, 100.765 etc.
o Some examples of valid floating point numbers include:
o 3.14
o 0.001
o -1.234
o 0.314E2 // 31.4
o 1.234E-5 // 0.00001234
o -3.45E-3 // -0.00345
 PHP Floating Point Numbers
A floating point number is a number with a decimal point or a number in
exponential form.
In the following example we will test different numbers.

<?php Output:
$x = 10.365; float(10.365)
var_dump($x); float(2400)
echo "<br>"; float(8.0E-5)
$x = 2.4e3;
var_dump($x);
echo "<br>";
$x = 8E-5;
var_dump($x);
?>
 Boolean

o Boolean values are true or false, also 0 and empty string

evaluates to false, and any numeric value rather than zero
or a string that is not empty evaluates to true.
o You can declare as given below

Boolean $variable;

Where Boolean denotes the type of the variable.

 Boolean

• Booleans can be either TRUE or FALSE.

• $x=true;
$y=false;
• Booleans are often used in conditional testing.
 String

• PHP Strings
• A string is a sequence of characters, like "Hello world!".
• A string can be any text inside quotes. You can use single or
double quotes:
• Example
<?php
$x = "Hello world!";
echo $x;
echo "<br>";
$x = 'Hello world!’;
echo $x;
?>
 String

o String values are sequence of characters, included in a

single quote or double quote for example,

o $str1 = “This is a string data type variable”;

o A string literal can be specified in four different ways:

o Single quoted
o Double quoted
o Heredoc syntax
o Nowdoc syntax
 Single Quoted

o The simplest way to specify a string is to enclose it in single

quotes

o Example:
<?php
echo ‘this is a simple string’;
?>
 Double Quoted

o If the string is enclosed in double-quotes (“)

o Example:
<?php
echo “This is \n a simple string”;
?>

O/P: This is
a simple string
 Here Documents
o The heredoc string structure is a method of including larger
strings inside the code. We can use it to include content of
any length.
o The heredoc syntax is a way to declare a string variable. The
heredoc syntax takes at least three lines of your code and
uses the special character <<< at the beginning.
o To create a heredoc, use a special operator that is made up
of three left brackets (<<<). The syntax is as follows:
o $longString = <<< termination_maker any amount of
content termination_maker;
Example
Example
Examples
output
Cont.,
 Nowdoc

o Nowdocs are to single-quoted strings what heredocs are to

double-quoted strings.
o A nowdoc is specified similarly to heredoc, but no parsing is
done inside a nowdoc
 Array

o An array in PHP is actually an ordered map. A map is a type

that associates values to keys. This type is optimized for
several different uses; It can be treated as an array, list
(vector), hash table (an implementation of a map),
dictionary, collection, stack, queue and probably more. As
array values can be other array s, trees and
multidimensional array s are also possible.
 Array

• An array stores multiple values in one single variable.

• In this example we create an array, and then use the
PHP var_dump() function to return the data type and
value of the array:
<?php
$cars=array("Volvo","BMW","Toyota");
var_dump($cars);
?>
• Output:
array(3) { [0]=> string(5) "Volvo" [1]=> string(3)
"BMW" [2]=> string(6) "Toyota" }
 Resource

o Resources are not an actual data type, but the storing of a

reference to functions and resource external to PHP.
o The most common example of using the resource data type
is a database call.
 Null

o Null is a special data type which can have only one value,
which is itself.
o Which is to say, null is not only a data type, but also a
keyword literal.
o A variable of data type null is a variable that has no value
assigned to it.
 PHP Data Types
 PHP Integer  PHP String

 PHP Float  PHP Boolean

 PHP Data Types
o PHP Array
• An array stores multiple values in one single variable.
• $cars is an array. The PHP var_dump() function
returns the data type and value:
 PHP Data Types
 PHP Object
 An object is a data type which
stores data and information on
how to process that data.
 In PHP, an object must be
explicitly declared.
 First we must declare a class of
object. For this, we use the class
keyword. A class is a structure
that can contain properties and
methods:
 PHP Data Types
 PHP NULL Value
 Null is a special data type which
can have only one value: NULL.
 A variable of data type NULL is a
variable that has no value
assigned to it.
 If a variable is created without a
value, it is automatically assigned
a value of NULL.
 Variables can also be emptied by
setting the value to NULL:
 PHP Strings
o PHP String Functions
• strlen() - Return the Length of a String

• str_word_count() - Count Words in a String

 PHP Strings
 strrev() - Reverse a String

 strpos() - Search For a Text Within a String

 str_replace() - Replace Text Within a String

 PHP Constants
o Constants are like variables except that once they are
defined they cannot be changed or undefined.
o A constant is an identifier (name) for a simple value. The
value cannot be changed during the script.
o A valid constant name starts with a letter or underscore
(no $ sign before the constant name).
o Unlike variables, constants are automatically global
across the entire script.
o To create a constant, use the define() function.
 Set a PHP Constant
• To set a constant, use the define() function - it takes three
parameters:
• The first parameter defines the name of the constant,
• the second parameter defines the value of the constant, and
• the optional third parameter specifies whether the constant
name should be case-insensitive. Default is false.
• The example below creates a case-sensitive constant, with the
value of "Welcome to OSP class!":
• Example:
<?php
// define a case-sensitive constant
define("GREETING", "Welcome to OSP class!");
echo GREETING;
echo "<br>";
// will not output the value of the constant
echo greeting;
?>
The example below creates a case-insensitive constant, with the value
of "Welcome to OSP class!":

<?php
// define a case-insensitive constant
define("GREETING", "Welcome to OSP class!", true);
echo GREETING;
echo "<br>";
// will also output the value of the constant
echo greeting;
?>

output:
Welcome to OSP class!
Welcome to OSP class!
 Summary
▪ PHP Data Type
▪ Integer
▪ Float
▪ Boolean
▪ String
▪ Array
▪ Object
▪ Null
▪ Constant
 References
1. Steven Holzner, “PHP:The Complete
Reference”, McGraw Hill Education, 2017
2. https://www.w3schools.com/php/
3. https://www.tutorialspoint.com/php/index.htm
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