Daily Exercise Program

We're starting the daily exercise program. 0:00 So let's create a new file and name it exercise.php. 0:02 Again, we need to start the file using the opening and closing php tags. 0:11 Like we did for unit converter let's add comments to document the steps needed for 0:17 this program. 0:21 First we need to store each exercise in a string variable, 0:24 then we'll need to create a variable containing the day of the week. 0:31 Then we'll use an if statement 0:42 to test for the day of the week. 0:47 And finally we'll display the corresponding exercise string. 0:54 So the first thing we need to do is store each exercise in a string. 1:03 So let's create our first string. 1:07 We'll call this $exercise1. 1:09 We're going to set this equal to a string. 1:13 You're probably expecting us to write a list of physical exercises. 1:16 While we could do that in the exact same way, 1:20 I thought it would be more fun to use programming exercises. 1:22 So for exercise one, let's use the first exercise we performed for this course. 1:27 Display hello world. 1:31 Now let's create six more exercises for the rest of the week. 1:38 I'm going to paste these in instead of typing them all out. 1:42 I'll put them in the teacher's notes for you as well, but 1:45 feel free to use any exercises you'd like. 1:47 Now that we have our exercises ready, 1:51 we need to create a variable containing the day of the week. 1:53 I'll call this Day. 1:59 This could be a string with a day name or just an integer for the day number. 2:03 I'm going to go with integer. 2:07 We could set the variable manually and we will for testing, but 2:10 we want this to be automated based on the actual day of the week. 2:14 PHP has another function we can use for this called date. 2:19 Date returns today's date in the format we specify in the parenthesis. 2:25 Passing in the upper case n within quotes 2:30 will give us the numeric representation of the day of the week. 2:34 One for Monday through seven for Sunday. 2:39 Let's var_dump day and run our script just to see. 2:43 As you can see it gives us the numeric representation of today's day of the week. 2:59 Today is Wednesday. 3:05 Great. 3:07 Now we can use that in an if statement to check the day of the week and 3:07 return a corresponding exercise. 3:11 If our day equals one. 3:17 If this is Monday. 3:23 Then we want to echo $exercise1. 3:25 Let's duplicate this for each day of the week 3:32 And then let's replace these numbers. 3:41 Okay, let's try this out. 4:04 It only displays the exercise that corresponds to that day of the week. 4:08 Convert kilograms to pounds we notice is exercise 3. 4:13 This is the third day of the week. 4:17 This works like we want, but by creating separate if statements, 4:20 we force PHP to evaluate each statement. 4:24 If the first statement is true, we know that the other statements must be false. 4:28 So let's combine these statements using the elseif. 4:33 Elseif day two, 4:35 elseif day three, day four, day five. 4:42 Day 6 and day 7. 4:51 Let's remove this far dump. 4:57 And run the script again. 5:02 Great now we see just the 1 exercise. 5:05 Let's change day just so we can see if this is actually working. 5:09 We'll change day manually to equal six. 5:15 And now let's run this code again. 5:21 We now see exercise six. 5:25 Month long string of the day. 5:28 Great job working with strings and creating your second program. 5:31 You've now used all the basic scalar type variables that PHP offers, 5:34 boolean, integer, float, and string. 5:39 You've also used many different operators to store, retrieve, and 5:43 manipulate the values in those variables. 5:47 You've also learned conditionals to tell the script how you want to use that data 5:50 and control the flow of your script. 5:55 Before you move on, try practicing some of the skills you've been learning. 5:58 Perform other conversions or mathematical computations. 6:01 Add a skill level to your exercises and 6:05 display an exercise by skill level as well as day. 6:07 Create a quote of the day or show a greeting based on the time of day. 6:11 In the final section of this course, we'll show how to work with PHP on a website so 6:14 that you can start sharing your newly learned skills with the world. 6:20