Incrementing and Decrementing Operators in PHP : Tutorial

Incrementing and Decrementing operators are unary operators.

Incrementing Operators

Increment operator increases the value of its operand by 1.
The operand(variable) must be a integer value.

We have two types of Increment operator,

1. Pre-increment operator

 
  ++$var  (Pre-increment : Increments $var by 1, then returns $var)
 

2. Post-increment operator

 
  $var++  (Post-increment : Returns $var, then increments $var by one)
 

Example 1: Pre-increment operator

<?php

$i=2;

//Increments $i by 1, then returns $i
echo ++$i   ."<br>";

echo $i;

}

?>

Output


3
3

Example 2: Post-increment operator

<?php

$i=2;

//Returns $i, then increments $i by one
echo $i++   ."<br>";

echo $i;

}

?>

Output


2
3

We alo have two types of Decremental Operator's,

1. Pre-decrement Operator

 
  ++$var  (Pre-decrement : Decrements $var by 1, then returns $var)
 

2. Post-decrement Operator

 
  $var++  (Post-decrement : Returns $var, then decrements $var by one)
 

Example 3: Pre-decrement operator

<?php

$i=2;

Decrements $i by 1, then returns $i
echo --$i   ."<br>";

echo $i;

}

?>

Output


1
1

Example 2: Post-decrement Operator

<?php

$i=2;

//Returns $i, then decrements $i by one
echo $i--   ."<br>";

echo $i;

}

?>

Output


2
1