Question

I am wondering if there is a difference between the two lines of code below:

protected $var = null;
protected $var;

I have seen both being used, and am wondering if it is just a matter of preference, (aka $var; initializes the variables to null anyway) or if there is actually a tangible difference between the two?

Answer 1

Same thing. It’s merely a stylistic difference.

From http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.null.php:

A variable is considered to be null if:

• it has been assigned the constant NULL.

• it has not been set to any value yet.

• it has been unset().