In PHP when would a variable assignment return false?

Question

When would a PHP variable assignment return false?

In this answer the following code is suggested

while (($lastPos = strpos($html, $needle, $lastPos))!== false) {
    $positions[] = $lastPos;
    $lastPos = $lastPos + strlen($needle);
}

... the while loop will end when the assignment...

$lastPos = strpos($html, $needle, $lastPos)

...returns false.

When would this assignment return false and why?

Thanks

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 15 '17 at 18:13

2

A variable assignment returns the value you assigned to the variable. So when the strpos call returns false (when the $needle isn't found), so will the assignment, and the loop will terminate.

answered Jun 15 '17 at 18:13

Mureinik

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score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 21 '20 at 00:51

1

strpos returns false when the $needle is not found in the $html. You can learn more about the return value of strpos here http://php.net/manual/en/function.strpos.php

edited Feb 21 '20 at 00:51

Bhargav Rao

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answered Jun 15 '17 at 18:13

In PHP when would a variable assignment return false?

2 Answers2