11.1. Data Types, Constants, and Variables

These functions check the status of a variable, change its type, or return a value as a particular data type.

value constant(string name)

Use constant (Listing 11.1) to fetch the value of a constant. This offers the ability to specify a constant with a variable.

Listing 11.1. constant
<?php
    function getDatabaseProperty($property)
    {
        return(constant("DATABASE_$property"));
    }

    define("DATABASE_HOST", "localhost");
    define("DATABASE_USER", "httpd");
    define("DATABASE_PASSWORD", "");
    define("DATABASE_NAME", "freetrade");

    print(getDatabaseProperty('HOST'));
?>

boolean ctype_alnum(string text)

The ctype_alnum function tests whether every character in the given string is in the set of all digits and letters, ...

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