PHP supports pre- and post-increment and decrement operators. Those unary operators allow to increment or decrement the value by one.
| Example | Name | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| ++$a | Pre-increment | Increments $a by one, then returns $a. |
| $a++ | Post-increment | Returns $a, then increments $a by one. |
| --$a | Pre-decrement | Decrements $a by one, then returns $a. |
| $a-- | Post-decrement | Returns $a, then decrements $a by one. |
Here's a simple example script:
<?php
echo 'Post-increment:', PHP_EOL;
$a = 5;
var_dump($a++);
var_dump($a);
echo 'Pre-increment:', PHP_EOL;
$a = 5;
var_dump(++$a);
var_dump($a);
echo 'Post-decrement:', PHP_EOL;
$a = 5;
var_dump($a--);
var_dump($a);
echo 'Pre-decrement:', PHP_EOL;
$a = 5;
var_dump(--$a);
var_dump($a);
?>The above example will output:
Post-increment: int(5) int(6) Pre-increment: int(6) int(6) Post-decrement: int(5) int(4) Pre-decrement: int(4) int(4)
The increment and decrement operators have no effect on values
of type bool.
A E_WARNING is emitted as of PHP 8.3.0,
because this will implicitly cast the value to int in the future.
The decrement operator has no effect on values
of type null.
A E_WARNING is emitted as of PHP 8.3.0,
because this will implicitly cast the value to int in the future.
The decrement operator has no effect on non-
numeric string.
A E_WARNING is emitted as of PHP 8.3.0,
because a TypeError will be thrown in the future.
Note:
Internal objects that support overloading addition and/or subtraction can also be incremented and/or decremented. One such internal object is GMP.
This feature is soft-deprecated as of PHP 8.3.0. The str_increment() function should be used instead.
It is possible to increment a non-
numeric string
in PHP. The string must be an alphanumerical ASCII string.
Which increments letters up to the next letter, when reaching the letter
Z the increment is carried to the value on the left.
For example, $a = 'Z'; $a++; turns $a
into 'AA'.
Example #1 PERL string increment example
<?php
echo '== Alphabetic strings ==' . PHP_EOL;
$s = 'W';
for ($n=0; $n<6; $n++) {
echo ++$s . PHP_EOL;
}
// Alphanumeric strings behave differently
echo '== Alphanumeric strings ==' . PHP_EOL;
$d = 'A8';
for ($n=0; $n<6; $n++) {
echo ++$d . PHP_EOL;
}
$d = 'A08';
for ($n=0; $n<6; $n++) {
echo ++$d . PHP_EOL;
}
?>The above example will output:
== Alphabetic strings == X Y Z AA AB AC == Alphanumeric strings == A9 B0 B1 B2 B3 B4 A09 A10 A11 A12 A13 A14
If the alphanumerical string can be interpreted as a numeric string it will be cast to an int or float. This is particularly an issue with strings that look like a floating point numbers written in exponential notation. The str_increment() function does not suffer from these implicit type cast.
Example #2 Alphanumerical string converted to float
<?php
$s = "5d9";
var_dump(++$s);
var_dump(++$s);
?>The above example will output:
string(3) "5e0" float(6)
This is because the value "5e0" is interpreted
as a float and cast to the value 5.0
before being incremented.