derick Sun Nov 9 07:17:32 2003 EDT
Modified files:
/phpdoc/en/language operators.xml
Log:
- Clarify operators a bit for newbies
Index: phpdoc/en/language/operators.xml
diff -u phpdoc/en/language/operators.xml:1.53 phpdoc/en/language/operators.xml:1.54
--- phpdoc/en/language/operators.xml:1.53 Sat Jul 19 15:37:59 2003
+++ phpdoc/en/language/operators.xml Sun Nov 9 07:17:31 2003
@@ -1,9 +1,28 @@
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
-<!-- $Revision: 1.53 $ -->
+<!-- $Revision: 1.54 $ -->
<chapter id="language.operators">
<title>Operators</title>
<simpara>
+ An operator is something that you feed with one or more values (or
+ expressions in the programing jargon) and yields another value (so that the
+ construction itself becomes an expression). So you can think of functions
+ or constructions that return a value (like print) as operators and those
+ that return nothing (like echo) as any other thing.
</simpara>
+ <para>
+ There are a few types of operators, there is the unairy operator which
+ operates on only one value, for example ! (the negation operator) or ++
+ (the increment operator). The second group is called binary operators; this
+ group contains of the most operators that PHP supports and a list follows
+ below in the section <link linkend="language.operators.precedence">Operator
+ Precedence</link>.
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ The third 'group is the ternairy operator: ?:. It should be used to select
+ between two expressions depending on a third one, not to select two
+ sentences or paths of execution. And always surrounding ?: expressions with
+ parenthesis is also a very good idea.
+ </para>
<sect1 id="language.operators.precedence">
<title>Operator Precedence</title>
@@ -216,9 +235,10 @@
</para>
<para>
In addition to the basic assignment operator, there are "combined
- operators" for all of the binary arithmetic and string operators
- that allow you to use a value in an expression and then set its
- value to the result of that expression. For example:
+ operators" for all of the <link linkend="language.operators">binary
+ arithmetic</link> and string operators that allow you to use a value in an
+ expression and then set its value to the result of that expression. For
+ example:
<informalexample>
<programlisting role="php">
<