Introduction to PHP while loops

This is just a quick introduction for beginners getting started with PHP and using while loops. You will quickly find that while loops are used regularly to cycle through specific data.

So here’s a little code snippet of a simple while loop in action.

<?php
$number = 0;
while ($number <= 10)
{
echo $number;
$number++;
}
?>

Lets run through the code to see whats happening. we start by using a php delimiter tag to declare that we are using php script. all your php code needs to be wrapped in these tags. e.g. <?php ‘code goes here’ ?>. The next line we’re setting the variable $number and giving it a value of ’0′, we then set the while loop and in the brackets set the ‘while clause’ in our case we’re saying that while $number is less than or equal to 10 then do whats in the curly brackets. In the brackets we’re just echoing the variable $number and after that we re-set the value of $number adding one to it.

If you want to increase a number by one each time simply put ++ after the variable. for example.

<?php
$i=2;
$i++;
echo $i;
?>

in the example above $i will be 3.

There are many uses for while loops, this is a basic introduction for those who are new to php. If you have any questions or comments please leave them below.

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