PHP in a Nutshell

String Operators

There are only two string operators in PHP: concatenation and shorthand concatenation . Both are shown in Table 6-3.

Table 6-3. The string operators

.	Concatenation	Returns the second value appended to the first: $a . $b
.=	Shorthand concatenation	Appends the second value to the first: $a .= $b

These operators are used to join strings together, like this:

    $first = "Hello, ";
    $second = "world!";

    // join $first and $second; assign to $third
    $third = $first . $second;
    // $third is now "Hello, world!"

    $first .= " officer!";
    // $first is now "Hello, officer!"