Global keyword behavior in PHP - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Global keyword behavior

📖 Scenario: Imagine you have a small PHP script that keeps track of a counter. You want to increase this counter inside a function, but the counter is defined outside the function.

🎯 Goal: You will learn how to use the global keyword in PHP to access and modify a variable defined outside a function from inside that function.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a variable called $counter with the value 0 outside any function.

Create a variable called $increment with the value 5.

Create a function called increaseCounter that uses the global keyword to access $counter and adds $increment to it.

Call the function increaseCounter once.

Print the value of $counter.

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Using the <code>global</code> keyword helps when you want to share and update data across different parts of a PHP script, like counters, settings, or shared resources.

💼 Career

Understanding variable scope and the <code>global</code> keyword is important for PHP developers to manage data correctly and avoid bugs in web applications.

1

Create the initial counter variable

Create a variable called $counter and set it to 0.

PHP

$counter = 0;
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use $counter = 0; to create the variable.

2

Add the increment variable

Create a variable called $increment and set it to 5.

PHP

<?php
$counter = 0;
$increment = 5;
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use $increment = 5; to create the variable.

3

Create the function to increase the counter

Create a function called increaseCounter that uses the global keyword to access $counter and adds $increment to it.

PHP

<?php
$counter = 0;
$increment = 5;

function increaseCounter() {
    // Your code here
}

Need a hint?

Inside the function, write global $counter, $increment; to access the variables, then add $increment to $counter.

4

Call the function and print the counter

Call the function increaseCounter() once, then print the value of $counter using echo.

PHP

<?php
$counter = 0;
$increment = 5;

function increaseCounter() {
    global $counter, $increment;
    $counter += $increment;
}

// Your code here

Need a hint?

Call increaseCounter(); then print $counter with echo $counter;.