Subtracting 1 from a value and storing it in another variable

php shorthand decrement
NightHawk picture NightHawk · Feb 25, 2011 · Viewed 13.1k times · Source

I vaguely remember running into this problem before, but I'm wondering if this just doesn't work in PHP:

echo $counter; // outputs 4
$output = $counter--;
echo $output; // outputs 4

If I do something like:

$output = $counter - 1;

I have no problems whatsoever.

Can someone shed some light on this?

Thanks, Ryan

Answer

AndreKR picture AndreKR · Feb 25, 2011

What you want is the pre-decrement operator:

echo $counter; // outputs 4
$output = --$counter;
echo $output; // outputs 3

Related questions

PHP shorthand for isset()?

Is there a shorthand way to assign a variable to something if it doesn't exist in PHP? if(!isset($var) { $var = ""; } I'd like to do something like $var = $var | "";

Read More
PHP if shorthand and echo in one line - possible?

What's the best, preferred way of writing if shorthand one-liner such as: expression ? $foo : $bar Plot twist: I need to echo $foo or echo $bar. Any crazy tricks? :)

Read More
Overview of PHP shorthand

I've been programming in PHP for years now, but I've never learned how to use any shorthand. I come across it from time to time in code and have a hard time reading it, so I'd like to learn the …

Read More