ryandward Posted April 8, 2011 Share Posted April 8, 2011 [Edit: Sorry I found my answer by searching for "period", then finding out that it is a string operator, then read about that. Doesn't seem easy to search for ".=" in Google. Thanks] I got some help here earlier, and I can pretty much understand everything, except I don't understand why there is $recordOptions .= "<option value=\"{$row['id']}\">"; $recordOptions .= " {$row['firstname']} {$row['lastname']}, {$row['gender']}, {$row['dob']}"; $recordOptions .= "</option>\n"; Why does this whole thing break without .= ? I am new to PHP so, sorry if the answer is really obvious. $recordOptions = ''; $query = "SELECT * FROM people"; $result = mysql_query($query); if(!$result) { $recordOptions = "<option>Error Retrieving Records</option>\n";; } else { while($row=mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) { $recordOptions .= "<option value=\"{$row['id']}\">"; $recordOptions .= " {$row['firstname']} {$row['lastname']}, {$row['gender']}, {$row['dob']}"; $recordOptions .= "</option>\n"; } } ?> <html> <body> <?php echo $confirmMsg; ?><br /> <form action ='' method='post'> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drisate Posted April 8, 2011 Share Posted April 8, 2011 It means concatenating assignment operator http://us2.php.net/manual/en/language.operators.string.php In english, the "dot" glues 2 strings into 1 $var .="Hello "; $var .="How are you."; echo $var; will print out "Hello How are you." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dcro2 Posted April 8, 2011 Share Posted April 8, 2011 The .= operator basically appends the contents of the right side to the variable, so it'd be the same as doing this: while($row=mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) { $recordOptions = $recordOptions."<option value=\"{$row['id']}\">"; $recordOptions = $recordOptions." {$row['firstname']} {$row['lastname']}, {$row['gender']}, {$row['dob']}"; $recordOptions = $recordOptions."</option>\n"; } Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ryandward Posted April 8, 2011 Author Share Posted April 8, 2011 The .= operator basically appends the contents of the right side to the variable, so it'd be the same as doing this: while($row=mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) { $recordOptions = $recordOptions."<option value=\"{$row['id']}\">"; $recordOptions = $recordOptions." {$row['firstname']} {$row['lastname']}, {$row['gender']}, {$row['dob']}"; $recordOptions = $recordOptions."</option>\n"; } Omg this is exactly what I needed. Thank you very much! I didn't know that it was cumulative. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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