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PHP 5 introduced private and protected member variables and methods, along with abstract classes and final classes as well as abstract methods and final methods. It also introduced a standard way of declaring constructors and destructors , similar to that of other object-oriented languages such as C++ , and a standard exception handling model.
PHP has a global keyword and a number of unusual ways of using global variables. Variables declared outside functions have file scope (which is for most purposes the widest scope). However, they are not accessible inside functions unless imported with the global keyword (i.e., the keyword accesses global variables, it does not declare them).
The choice of a variable name should be mnemonic — that is, designed to indicate to the casual observer the intent of its use. One-character variable names should be avoided except for temporary "throwaway" variables. Common names for temporary variables are i, j, k, m, and n for integers; c, d, and e for characters. int i;
While a variable or function may be declared many times, it is typically defined once (in C++, this is known as the One Definition Rule or ODR). Dynamic languages such as JavaScript or Python generally allow functions to be redefined, that is, re-bound; a function is a variable much like any other, with a name and a value (the definition).
In the PHP language, which was largely inspired by Perl, "$" precedes any variable name. Names not prefixed by this are considered constants, functions or class names (or interface or trait names, which share the same namespace as classes). PILOT uses "$" for buffers (string variables), "#" for integer variables, and "*" for program labels.
If a variable is only referenced by a single identifier, that identifier can simply be called the name of the variable; otherwise, we can speak of it as one of the names of the variable. For instance, in the previous example the identifier "total_count" is the name of the variable in question, and "r" is another name of the same variable.
A third way is by declaring and defining a variable as being "constant". A global variable or static variable can be declared (or a symbol defined in assembly) with a keyword qualifier such as const, constant, or final, meaning that its value will be set at compile time and should not be changeable at runtime. Compilers generally put static ...
Since PHP 4.0.1 create_function(), a thin wrapper around eval(), allowed normal PHP functions to be created during program execution; it was deprecated in PHP 7.2 and removed in PHP 8.0 [226] in favor of syntax for anonymous functions or "closures" [227] that can capture variables from the surrounding scope, which was added in PHP 5.3.