for
(PHP 4, PHP5)
for loops are the most complex loops in PHP. They behave like their C counterparts. The syntax of a for loop is:
for (expr1; expr2; expr3)
statement
The first expression (expr1) is evaluated (executed) once unconditionally at the beginning of the loop.
In the beginning of each iteration, expr2 is evaluated. If it evaluates to TRUE, the loop continues and the nested statement(s) are executed. If it evaluates to FALSE, the execution of the loop ends.
At the end of each iteration, expr3 is evaluated (executed).
Each of the expressions can be empty or contain multiple expressions separated by commas. In expr2, all expressions separated by a comma are evaluated but the result is taken from the last part. expr2 being empty means the loop should be run indefinitely (PHP implicitly considers it as TRUE, like C). This may not be as useless as you might think, since often you'd want to end the loop using a conditional break statement instead of using the for truth expression.
Consider the following examples. All of them display the numbers 1 through 10:
<?php
/* example 1 */
for ($i = 1; $i <= 10; $i++) {
echo $i;
}
/* example 2 */
for ($i = 1; ; $i++) {
if ($i > 10) {
break;
}
echo $i;
}
/* example 3 */
$i = 1;
for (; ; ) {
if ($i > 10) {
break;
}
echo $i;
$i++;
}
/* example 4 */
for ($i = 1, $j = 0; $i <= 10; $j += $i, print $i, $i++);
?>Of course, the first example appears to be the nicest one (or perhaps the fourth), but you may find that being able to use empty expressions in for loops comes in handy in many occasions.
PHP also supports the alternate "colon syntax" for for loops.
for (expr1; expr2; expr3):
statement
...
endfor;
Its a common thing to many users to iterate though arrays like in the example below.
<?php
/*
* This is an array with some data we want to modify
* when running through the for loop.
*/
$people = Array(
Array('name' => 'Kalle', 'salt' => 856412),
Array('name' => 'Pierre', 'salt' => 215863)
);
for($i = 0; $i < sizeof($people); ++$i)
{
$people[$i]['salt'] = rand(000000, 999999);
}
?>The problem lies in the second for expression. This code can be slow because it has to calculate the size of the array on each iteration. Since the size never change, it can be optimized easily using an intermediate variable to store the size and use in the loop instead of sizeof. The example below illustrates this:
<?php
$people = Array(
Array('name' => 'Kalle', 'salt' => 856412),
Array('name' => 'Pierre', 'salt' => 215863)
);
for($i = 0, $size = sizeof($people); $i < $size; ++$i)
{
$people[$i]['salt'] = rand(000000, 999999);
}
?>User Contributed Notes
Here is another simple example for " for loops"
<?php
$text="Welcome to PHP";
$searchchar="e";
$count="0"; //zero
for($i="0"; $i<strlen($text); $i=$i+1){
if(substr($text,$i,1)==$searchchar){
$count=$count+1;
}
}
echo $count
?>
this will be count how many "e" characters in that text (Welcome to PHP)Here is another simple example for " for loops"
<?php
$text="Welcome to PHP";
$searchchar="e";
$count="0"; //zero
for($i="0"; $i<strlen($text); $i=$i+1){
if(substr($text,$i,1)==$searchchar){
$count=$count+1;
}
}
echo $count
?>
this will be count how many "e" characters in that text (Welcome to PHP)Alternating form rows:
<?php
$rows = 4;
echo '<table><tr>';
for($i = 0; $i < 10; $i++){
echo '<td>' . $i . '</td>';
if(($i + 1) % $rows == 0){
echo '</tr><tr>';
}
}
echo '</tr></table>';
?>
Changing $rows will change how many columns are in a row.Just a note on looping through an array using the for() loop.
with the array...
<?php $array = array("value1","value2","value3"); ?>
then...
<?php
for(reset($array),current($array),next($array){
echo("Element ".key($array)." contains ".current($array)."<br/>";
}
?>
is the equivalent of...
<?php
for($i=0;$i<count($array);$i++){
echo("Element $i contains $array[$i]<br/>");
}
?>
I don't know if there is any advantage, just thought I would mention it.Nested For Loop with the same iterator as the parent.
(Well formatted so the resulting code is clean when executed).
Useful for outputting a data array into a table, ie. images.
<?php
//Dummy data
$data = array(73,74,75,76,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86,87);
//Our 'stepping' variable
$g = 0;
//Our rowcount
$rowcount = 0;
echo "<table cellspacing='0'>\r";
for ($i=0; $i<count($data); ) {
$rowcount++;
echo " <tr>\r"; //New row
$g = $i + 3; //Set our nested limit
for( ; $i<$g; $i++) { //nested for loop
if (!isset($data[$i])) { //Allow us to break on incomplete rows
break;
}
echo " <td style='border: 1px #000 solid;'>\r"; //Out put a cell
echo " <p>Row $rowcount <br/> Cell: $i <br/> Data: $data[$i]</p>\r";
echo " </td>\r";
}
echo " </tr> \r"; //End New Row
}
echo "</table>\r";?><?php
//this is a different way to use the 'for'
//Essa é uma maneira diferente de usar o 'for'
for($i = $x = $z = 1; $i <= 10;$i++,$x+=2,$z=&$p){
$p = $i + $x;
print "\$i = $i , \$x = $x , \$z = $z <br />";
}
?>On the combination problem again...
It seems to me like it would make more sense to go through systematically. That would take nested for loops, where each number was put through all of it's potentials sequentially.
The following would give you all of the potential combinations of a four-digit decimal combination, printed in a comma delimited format:
<?php
for($a=0;$a<10;$a++){
for($b=0;$b<10;$b++){
for($c=0;$c<10;$c++){
for($d=0;$d<10;$d++){
echo $a.$b.$c.$d.", ";
}
}
}
}
?>
Of course, if you know that the numbers you had used were in a smaller subset, you could just plunk your possible numbers into arrays $a, $b, $c, and $d and then do nested foreach loops as above.
- ElizabethFor those who are having issues with needing to evaluate multiple items in expression two, please note that it cannot be chained like expressions one and three can. Although many have stated this fact, most have not stated that there is still a way to do this:
<?php
for($i = 0, $x = $nums['x_val'], $n = 15; ($i < 23 && $number != 24); $i++, $x + 5;) {
// Do Something with All Those Fun Numbers
}
?>Also acceptable:
<?php
for($letter = ord('a'); $letter <= ord('z'); $letter++)
print chr($letter);
?>If you're already using the fastest algorithms you can find (on the order of O(1), O(n), or O(n log n)), and you're still worried about loop speed, unroll your loops using e.g., Duff's Device:
<?php
$n = $ITERATIONS % 8;
while ($n--) $val++;
$n = (int)($ITERATIONS / 8);
while ($n--) {
$val++;
$val++;
$val++;
$val++;
$val++;
$val++;
$val++;
$val++;
}
?>
(This is a modified form of Duff's original device, because PHP doesn't understand the original's egregious syntax.)
That's algorithmically equivalent to the common form:
<?php
for ($i = 0; $i < $ITERATIONS; $i++) {
$val++;
}
?>
$val++ can be whatever operation you need to perform ITERATIONS number of times.
On my box, with no users, average run time across 100 samples with ITERATIONS = 10000000 (10 million) is:
Duff version: 7.9857 s
Obvious version: 27.608 sThe point about the speed in loops is, that the middle and the last expression are executed EVERY time it loops.
So you should try to take everything that doesn't change out of the loop.
Often you use a function to check the maximum of times it should loop. Like here:
<?php
for ($i = 0; $i <= somewhat_calcMax(); $i++) {
somewhat_doSomethingWith($i);
}
?>
Faster would be:
<?php
$maxI = somewhat_calcMax();
for ($i = 0; $i <= $maxI; $i++) {
somewhat_doSomethingWith($i);
}
?>
And here a little trick:
<?php
$maxI = somewhat_calcMax();
for ($i = 0; $i <= $maxI; somewhat_doSomethingWith($i++)) ;
?>
The $i gets changed after the copy for the function (post-increment).