Sams Teach Yourself PHP, MySQL™ and Apache in 24 Hours

Chapter 5. Flow Control Functions in PHP

The scripts created in the last hour flow only in a single direction. The same statements are executed in the same order every time a script is run. This does not allow for much flexibility.

You will now look at some structures that enable your scripts to adapt to circumstances. In this hour, you will learn

• How to use the if statement to execute code if a test expression evaluates to true

• How to execute alternative blocks of code when the test expression of an if statement evaluates to false

• How to use the switch statement to execute code based on the value returned by a test expression

• How to repeat execution of code using a while statement

• How to use for statements to make neater loops

• How to break out of loops ...