promise me: code

Showing posts with label code. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Loops

Loops are a very powerful tool in PHP. Today, I will explain the different types briefly as an overview. There are some basic loops in PHP that are very similar to the three basic loops in Java in addition to a new one:

while
do...while
for
foreach

The first three loops perform the same as they do in Java, so it makes it easier for beginner developers to switch from one language to the other. Because of the familiarity, I will be brief in my explanations for these loops.

The while loop is for when the developer wants to perform an action if the condition is true. If not, then the code will be skipped over.

A do...while loop is for when the developer wants to perform an action at least once while the condition is true.

A for loop is usually for when the developer has a set amount of times that the section of code should be looped. This loop is more efficient than the others because it can initialize, compare, and modify a variable all in one line.

A foreach loop is the new addition that is not in Java! This loop takes each element in an array, sets it to a variable, and performs an action on it. After that, the pointer will move to the next element and continue from there. To help explain this concept further, watch the video below:

Source: http://www.tutorialspoint.com/php/php_loop_types.htm

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Understanding PHP Arrays

Arrays in PHP are a very useful tool to use when a developer wants to put several valuables in a list or table format. This makes it easy to categorize and retrieve values from one variable. There are three types of arrays in PHP: indexed, associative, and multidimensional.

An indexed array is where the indexes of the array are integers, starting with 0.
An example of assignment:
$example_array[0] = 1;
An associative array is where the indexes of the array are alphanumeric, which means that the developer can name the index in either letters, numbers, or both.
An example of assignment:
$example_array['George'] = 45;
A multidimensional array is where an array lies within another array. The developer can nest arrays so that there can be multiple dimensions, like a 3 x 4 table.

The array variable also comes with a multitude of preset functions such as count() and array(). The array() function is particularly useful since it saves the time of writing out the name of the array repetitively when assigning multiple values. With this function, the developer can insert large amounts of values at once in one command line:

$example_array = array("Beth", "Andrew", "Grace");

Through using a for or foreach loop, it is easy to retrieve values from one variable instead of trying to retrieve a value from a large amount of separate variables. There can be many ways to write out these loops since there are many purposes that it may serve such as sorting, retrieving, print out, and much more.

Arrays are excellent tools to use when handling large amounts of data, and they come with a variety of functions as well. Here is a helpful video:

Source: http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_arrays.asp, http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_arrays_multi.asp

Friday, April 1, 2016

HTML Basics

HTML, or Hyper Text Markup Language, requires several basic tags to be able to create a website. I am going to be discussing the ones for HTML5, the first being the <!DOCTYPE html>.

a picture from W3C's Introduction to HTML (http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_intro.asp)

<!DOCTYPE html>
Before the HTML tag, this must be declared to show the web browser which type of HTML it is reading.
<html>
This tag contains every other tag used in the HTML document, including the head, title, body, and other optional tags such as style, script, or etc. tags. At the very end of the document, there must be a closing </html> tag.
<head>
The head tag is where another essential tag, <title>, lies. Inside the head tag, things like the CSS and meta tags are placed. Information about the HTML document will be contained in here.
<title>
This tag is basically what it says: the title of the document. This will show up on the tab of the browser.
<body>
The body tag is where the output code is placed. There are different types of formatting settings that a developer can use to create and customize such as the different heading tags (<h1>) and paragraph tags (<p>).

HTML files are very easy to create and test on personal computers at home. They can even be created on a basic text editor, meaning developers do not have to purchase advanced software right while first learning the language. If anyone is interested in IDEs, there are links on the right side bar.

Source: http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_intro.asp