Question

I have this code:

<?php 
$counter = 1;

while ($counter == 5) {
    echo "foo<br />";
    $counter++;
}
?>

What I am expecting is to print foo 5 times on a separate lines. But what I get is a never ending loop. Are PHP while loops special? because when I do similar thing in Python, it works fine.

Answer 1

You want while ($counter <= 5). That means “loop through this as long as $counter is less than or equal to 5“.

The way you have it written, it is saying “loop through this as long as $counter equals 5“. Since $counter is 1 the first time it gets to your loop, it skips the loop entirely!