While loop execution model in PHP - Mini Project: Build & Apply

While loop execution model

📖 Scenario: You are managing a small store's daily sales count. You want to count how many customers have entered until the store closes.

🎯 Goal: Build a PHP program that uses a while loop to count customers entering the store until a set closing time.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a variable to track the number of customers

Create a variable for the store closing time (maximum customers)

Use a while loop to count customers until the closing time

Print the total number of customers counted

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Counting customers or events until a limit is reached is common in stores, websites, or games.

💼 Career

Understanding loops is essential for automating repetitive tasks and controlling program flow in many programming jobs.

1

Create initial customer count

Create a variable called $customerCount and set it to 0 to start counting customers.

PHP

$customerCount = 0;
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use = to assign 0 to $customerCount.

2

Set store closing time

Create a variable called $closingTime and set it to 5 to represent the maximum number of customers before closing.

PHP

<?php
$customerCount = 0;
$closingTime = 5;
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Assign the number 5 to $closingTime.

3

Use while loop to count customers

Use a while loop with the condition $customerCount < $closingTime. Inside the loop, increase $customerCount by 1 using $customerCount++;.

PHP

<?php
$customerCount = 0;
$closingTime = 5;
while ($customerCount < $closingTime) {
    # Your code here
}

Need a hint?

The loop runs while $customerCount is less than $closingTime. Increase $customerCount by 1 inside the loop.

4

Print the total customers counted

Use echo to print the text 'Total customers: ' followed by the value of $customerCount.

PHP

<?php
$customerCount = 0;
$closingTime = 5;
while ($customerCount < $closingTime) {
    $customerCount++;
}
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use echo to show the message and the number.