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A Guide to PHP Operators

PHP Operators


Hello folks! welcome back to a new edition of our tutorial on PHP. In this tutorial guide, we are going to be studying about the PHP Operators.

What is an Operator?

An operator is a symbol that represents an action or process. We are going to use the expression 6 + 5 equal to 11 as an example. Here 6 and 5 are called operands and then + is the operator. PHP supports the following type of operators.

  • Arithmetic Operators
  • Comparison Operators
  • Logical Operators
  • Assignment Operators
  • Conditional Operator

Now let us look into these PHP supported operators one after the other.


Arithmetic Operators

The following are the Arithmetic Operators supported by PHP -

Assume variable A holds 10 and variable B holds 20, then -

Read Examples

OperatorDescriptionExample
+Adds two operandsA + B will give 30
-Subtracts second operand from the firstA - B will give -10
*Multiply both operandsA * B will give 200
/Divide numerator by de-numeratorB / A will give 2
%Modulus Operator and remainder of after an integer divisionB % A will give 0
++Increment operator, increases integer value by oneA++ will give 11
--Decrement operator, decreases integer value by oneA-- will give 9


Comparison Operators

Following are the Comparison Operators supported by PHP -

Assume variable A holds 10 and variable B holds 20, then -

Read Examples

OperatorDescriptionExample
==Checks if the value of two operands are equal or not, if yes then condition becomes true.(A == B) is not true.
!=Checks if the value of two operands are equal or not, if values are not equal then condition becomes true.(A != B) is true.
>Checks if the value of left operand is greater than the value of right operand, if yes then condition becomes true.(A > B) is not true.
<Checks if the value of left operand is less than the value of right operand, if yes then condition becomes true.(A < B) is true.
>=Checks if the value of left operand is greater than or equal to the value of right operand, if yes then condition becomes true.(A >= B) is not true.
<=Checks if the value of left operand is less than or equal to the value of right operand, if yes then condition becomes true.(A <= B) is true


Logical Operators

Following below are the Logical Operators supported by PHP -

Assume variable A holds 10 and variable B holds 20, then -

Read Examples

OperatorDescriptionExample
andCalled Logical AND operator. If both the operands are true then condition becomes true.(A and B) is true.
orCalled Logical OR Operator. If any of the two operands are non zero then condition becomes true.(A or B) is true.
&&Called Logical AND operator. If both the operands are non zero then condition becomes true.(A && B) is true.
||Called Logical OR Operator. If any of the two operands are non zero then condition becomes true.(A || B) is true.
!Called Logical NOT Operator. Use to reverses the logical state of its operand. If a condition is true then Logical NOT operator will make false.!(A && B) is false.


Assignment Operators

Following are the Assignment Operators supported by PHP -

Read Examples

OperatorDescriptionExample
=Simple assignment operator, Assigns values from right side operands to left side operandC = A + B will assign value of A + B into C
+=Add AND assignment operator, It adds right operand to the left operand and assign the result to left operandC += A is equivalent to C = C + A
-=Subtract AND assignment operator, It subtracts right operand from the left operand and assign the result to left operandC -= A is equivalent to C = C - A
*=Multiply AND assignment operator, It multiplies right operand with the left operand and assign the result to left operandC *= A is equivalent to C = C * A
/=Divide AND assignment operator, It divides left operand with the right operand and assign the result to left operandC /= A is equivalent to C = C / A
%=Modulus AND assignment operator, It takes modulus using two operands and assign the result to left operandC %= A is equivalent to C = C % A


Conditional (Ternary) Operator

There is one last operator called conditional operator. This first evaluates an expression for a true or false value, and then executes one of the two given statements based on the result of the evaluation.

Read Examples

OperatorDescriptionExample
? :Conditional ExpressionIf Condition is true ? Then value X : Otherwise value Y

Operators Categories

All the above operators can be grouped into the following categories -

  • Unary prefix operators - which precede only a single operand.
  • The binary operators - which take two operands and then performs series of arithmetic and logic operations.
  • The conditional operator - which takes three operands and evaluate either the second or third expression, depending on evaluation of the first expression.
  • Assignment operators - which assigns a value to a variable.


Operator Precedence and Associativity

Operator Precedence and Associativity

Operator precedence decides the grouping of terms in an expression. This affects how an expression is evaluated.

Certain operators have a higher precedence than others; for example, the multiplication operator has a higher precedence than the addition operator -

For example x = 10+3*2; Here, operand x is assigned the value 16, and not 26 because the operator * has a higher precedence than + so it first get multiplied with 3*2 and then adds into 10.

Here operators with the highest precedence show at the top of the table, and those with the lowest appear at the bottom. Within an expression, the higher precedence operator will be evaluated first.

CategoryOperatorAssociativity
Unary! ++ --Right to left
Multiplicative* / %Left to right
Additive+ -Left to right
Relational< <= > >=Left to right
Equality== !=Left to right
Logical AND&&Left to right
Logical OR||Left to right
Conditional?:Right to left
Assignment= += -= *= /= %=Right to left


Alright guys! This is where we are rounding up for this tutorial post. In our next tutorial guide, we are going to be discussing about the Arithmetic Operators.

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