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PHP PHP Basics Daily Exercise Program String Manipulation

Posted by Tolu Adesina
Tolu Adesina
1,549 Points

I have a problem with my challenge on concatenating strings..

Use the $fullname variable to display the following string to the screen. Use an escape character to add a newline to the end of the string. 'Rasmus Lerdorf was the original creator of PHP'

index.php 
<?php

//Place your code below this comment
$firstName = 'Rasmus';
$lastName = 'Lerdorf';

//$fullname = $firstName .' '. $lastName;
$fullname = "'" . $firstName .' '. $lastName . ' was the original creator of PHP\'' . "\n";
echo $fullname;

?>

2 Answers

Jennifer Nordell
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Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher
Jennifer Nordell
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Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher

Hi there! You're really close. What if I added this little tidbit to the instructions: "without changing the previous value of $fullname"? The problem here is that you're changing the value of $fullname from what passed in step 2.

Try echoing your new string directly with something like echo "My uncle is named $fullname";

Hope this helps, but let me know if you're still stuck! :sparkles:

Tolu Adesina
Tolu Adesina
1,549 Points

Thanks but i am still stuck, system keeps telling me "Oops! It looks like Task 2 is no longer passing."

Jennifer Nordell
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Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher
Jennifer Nordell
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Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher

Well here we go then! The two main problems here are that you are

  1. overthinking this
  2. you are overwriting the previous value of $fullname

Take a look:

<?php

//Place your code below this comment
$firstName = 'Rasmus';
$lastName = 'Lerdorf';

//$fullname = $firstName .' '. $lastName;
$fullname = $firstName .' '. $lastName;
echo "$fullname was the original creator of PHP\n";

?>

Here you can see that I left the $fullname variable set to the full name of Rasmus Lerdorf. You were changing $fullname to be equal to "Rasmus Lerdorf was the original creator of PHP.\n". And his full name isn't that long! It sounds mildly like the Artist formerly Known as Prince :smiley:

Then we echo out the $fullname and the string given by the challenge instructions. We do this directly in the echo so as not to replace the original value of $fullname. Hope that clarifies things! :sparkles:

Tolu Adesina
Tolu Adesina
1,549 Points

Thank you very much, it worked... very grateful. Now i can move on..

Benjamen King
Benjamen King
18,959 Points
Benjamen King
Benjamen King
18,959 Points

I think you are taking the instructions too literally. Try:

$fullname = $firstName .' '. $lastName . ' was the original creator of PHP'."\n";
echo $fullname;

In other words, no single quotes. By the way, this works too:

$fullname = "$firstName $lastName was the original creator of PHP\n";
echo $fullname;
Jennifer Nordell
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher
Jennifer Nordell
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree
Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse Teacher

Unfortunately, this code will also not pass the challenge as it overwrites the original value of $fullname as indicated in my answer above. The original value of $fullname must be left intact and unaltered for the challenge to pass :smiley: