WebReference.com has posted part three of their "Building Blocks" series - a look at data types, literals, variables, and constants.

In part three, they focus more on the last type of "block" in their list - the constant:

Some real-world constants, such as pi, the speed of light, the number of inches in a foot, and the value of midnight, are values that don't change. PHP not only provides its own predefined constants but lets you create your own. Using constants makes it easy to write and maintain your programs.

There's talk of the define() and constant() functions and a mention of some of the predefined and "magic constants" as well.

WebReference.com has posted part three of their "Building Blocks" series - a look at data types, literals, variables, and constants.

In part three, they focus more on the last type of "block" in their list - the constant:

Some real-world constants, such as pi, the speed of light, the number of inches in a foot, and the value of midnight, are values that don't change. PHP not only provides its own predefined constants but lets you create your own. Using constants makes it easy to write and maintain your programs.

There's talk of the define() and constant() functions and a mention of some of the predefined and "magic constants" as well.

WebReference.com has posted part two in a series looking at the "building blocks" that make up PHP and its use. This time, it's a look at the containers for your data - the data types, literals, variables, and constants.

They go through each, explaining what they are, how they're used and when you'd want to use them in your code. They explain the data types and how those fit with each "container" and some basic things like valid names and how to assign things correctly.

They even get get into working with variables from GET and POST requests as well as working with the scope of variables and getting the metadata about them (is it an integer? is it empty?)

WebReference.com has posted part two in a series looking at the "building blocks" that make up PHP and its use. This time, it's a look at the containers for your data - the data types, literals, variables, and constants.

They go through each, explaining what they are, how they're used and when you'd want to use them in your code. They explain the data types and how those fit with each "container" and some basic things like valid names and how to assign things correctly.

They even get get into working with variables from GET and POST requests as well as working with the scope of variables and getting the metadata about them (is it an integer? is it empty?)

On the KillerSoft blog today, there's a few comments from Clay Loveless about his trial of Textmate, specifically when dealing with phpDocumentor comment blocks.

I've been a BBEdit user for a decade, and despite my switch to Zend Studio last fall for the bulk of my PHP development, I still find myself going to plain text editors for little tweaks, or less formal "hack it out" efforts.

There are a few things that I've grown very accustomed to as a Zend Studio user over the past several months. One of those is typing "/**" in a PHP document and having a full phpDocumentor docblock appear magically, with the cursor insertion point set on the first line of the comment area.

Unfortunately, TextMate doesn't handle it quite that way, but he's found a similar way to accomplish it - using "doc_cp" followed by a TAB. It doesn't quite handle the preformatted blocks as well as Zend's software does, but that's nothing the scripting features of TextMate can't take care of - he shows you how.

On the KillerSoft blog today, there's a few comments from Clay Loveless about his trial of Textmate, specifically when dealing with phpDocumentor comment blocks.

I've been a BBEdit user for a decade, and despite my switch to Zend Studio last fall for the bulk of my PHP development, I still find myself going to plain text editors for little tweaks, or less formal "hack it out" efforts.

There are a few things that I've grown very accustomed to as a Zend Studio user over the past several months. One of those is typing "/**" in a PHP document and having a full phpDocumentor docblock appear magically, with the cursor insertion point set on the first line of the comment area.

Unfortunately, TextMate doesn't handle it quite that way, but he's found a similar way to accomplish it - using "doc_cp" followed by a TAB. It doesn't quite handle the preformatted blocks as well as Zend's software does, but that's nothing the scripting features of TextMate can't take care of - he shows you how.