The document contains a 14 page questionnaire about PHP basics and fundamentals. It includes multiple choice and explanation questions about PHP syntax, variables, data types, operators, functions, arrays and more. The first part contains 25 multiple choice questions testing knowledge of PHP basics like tags, syntax, variables, operators, functions, conditional and loop statements. The second part has 7 additional multiple choice questions focusing on built-in functions, arrays, filters and regular expressions. The third part asks to explain two tricky PHP code examples. In summary, the document is a comprehensive skills assessment covering PHP fundamentals through multiple choice and explanation questions. It tests a wide range of PHP concepts and features to evaluate proficiency with the language.

1. PHP Basic and Fundamental Questions and Answers with Detail Explanation
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PART I - Multiple choice questions focuses on PHP basics and
fundamentals:
1. PHP files have a default file extension of...
A. .html
B. .xml
C. .php
D. .ph
2. A PHP script should start with ... and end with ...
A. <php >
B. <? php ?>
C. <? ?>
D. <?php ?>
Description:
 <?php ?> The standard opening and closing tags
 <? ?> In addition PHP also allows for short open tag and can be enabled
and disabled targeting --enable-short-tags option in the PHP configuration
file php.ini. This is method is not recommended since it is only available if
enabled!
3. Which of the following must be installed on your computer to run and
test PHP script?
A.  Adobe Dreamweaver
B.  PHP
C.  Apache
D.  Notepad++
E.  All of the mentioned.
Description: To test and run PHP script it is required to have PHP and a web server
installed and configured.

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4. We can use ... to comment a single line?
A. /?
B. //
C. #
D. /* */
E. All of the mentioned.
Description: # and // are used and recommended for single line comment, and /* */
can also be used to comment either a single line or multi line.
5. Which of the following PHP statement will store 125 in variable
number?
A. int $number = 125;
B. int number = 125;
C. $number = 125;
D. 125 = $number;
Description: PHP is not a strong typed language like C and Java, therefore, no need
not specify the datatype during variable declaration and initialization.
6. What will be the output of the following PHP code?
<?php
$a = 1;
$b = 2;
echo $a . "+". $b;
?>
A. 3
B. 1+2
C. 1.+.2
D. Error
Description: The dot (.) operator is used to concatenate two or more parts together.

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7. What will be the output of the following PHP code?
<?php
$a = "1";
$b = "2";
echo $a + $b;
?>
A. 3
B. 1+2
C. Error
D. 12
Description: The + operator in PHP is used for mathematical operations; therefore,
the numbers inside the double quotes during the calculation are considered and
parsed as integers and not string.
8. Which of following variables are valid and can be assigned a value
to it?
A. $3hello
B. $_hello
C. $this
D. $This
E. All of the mentioned
Description: Similar as other languages such as Java, C and C++ a variable can't
start with a number in general. The $this is a reference to the current object, and it
is the way to reference an instance of a class from within itself and most commonly
used in object oriented. PHP is a Case Sensitive language, therefore, $This is a valid
variable name.

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9. What will be the output of the following code?
<?php
$name = 'Abdul Rahman';
$anotherName = &$name;
$anotherName = "My name is $anotherName";
echo $anotherName . " " . $name;
?>
A. Error
B. My name is Abdul Rahman Abdul Rahman
C. My name is Abdul Rahman My name is Abdul Rahman
D. My name is Abdul Rahman Abdul Rahman
Description: The statement $anotherName = &$name; will assign the reference and
address of variable $name to $anotherName. This means any modification and
changes to the variable $name will impact $anotherName.
10. What will be the output of the following PHP code?
<?php
$colors = "Red, Green, Blue";
echo $colors[2];
?>
A. Blue
B. Error
C. d
D. Green
Description: PHP treats strings same as arrays, allowing for specific characters to be
accessed via array offset notation. Therefore, index 0 will print character "R", index 1
will print character "e", and index 2 will print character "d".

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11. What will be the output of the following PHP code?
<?php
$total = "25 students";
$more = 10;
$total = $total + $more;
echo "$total";
?>
A. Error
B. 35 students
C. 35
D. 25 students 10
Description: The + operator in PHP is used for arithmetic operations, therefore, the
value "25" at the beginning of the original $total string is parsed as integer.
However if it begins with anything but a numerical value, the parse result will be
value 0.
12. Which of the below statements is equivalent to $add += $add?
A. $add = $add
B. $add = $add +$add
C. $add = $add + 1
D. $add = $add + $add + 1
Description: The += is shortcut assignment for addition operation, for example, a
+= b is equivalent to a = a + b. The same can be done with subtraction,
multiplication, division, modulus, etc.
13. Which statement will output $name on the screen?
A. echo "$name";
B. echo "$$name";
C. echo "/$name";
D. echo "$name;";
Description: The $ is used to escape the dollar sign ($), therefore, the $name is
treated as a normal string character.

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14. What will be the output of the following code?
<?php
function track() {
static $count = 0;
$count++;
echo $count;
}
track();
track();
track();
?>
A. 123
B. 111
C. 000
D. 012
Description: The static retains its previous value each time the function is called.
Therefore, it makes the function remember the value of the given variable ($count in
the above example) between multiple calls.
15. What will be the output of the following PHP code?
<?php
$name = "Abdul Rahman";
$name .= " Sherzad";
echo $name;
?>
A. Abdul Rahman
B. true
C. false
D. Abdul Rahman Sherzad
Description: The (.=) is a shortcut assignment for concatenation operation. Hence,
the $name equals its current value concatenated with the string " Sherzad".
The statement $name .= " Sherzad"; is equivalent to $name = $name . " Sherzad";

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16. What will be the output of the following PHP code?
<?php
$a = 5;
$b = 5;
echo ($a === $b);
?>
A. 5 === 5
B. Error
C. 1
D. False
Description: The == operator compares the values of variables for equality and type
casting as necessary. But the === operator checks if the two variables are of the
same type AND have the same value. Hence, variable $a, and variable $b, both are
integers and have same value it prints 1.
17. What will be the output of the following PHP code?
<?php
$age = 10;
echo 'What is his age? n He is $age years old';
?>
A. What is his age? n He is $age years old
B. What is his age?
He is $age years old
C. What is his age? He is 10 years old
D. What is his age?
He is 10 years old
Description: The escape sequence characters and variables when are enclosed
within single quotes '' will not be interpreted when the string is parsed!

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18. Which of the below symbols is a newline character?
A. r
B. n
C. /n
D. /r
Description: The n escape character in PHP and other most programming
languages is treated as newline character.
19. Which of the conditional statements is/are supported by PHP?
A. if statements
B. if-else statements
C. if-elseif statements
D. switch statements
E. A), B) and C)
F. B), C) and D)
G. All of the mentioned.
Description: PHP supports all the mentioned conditional statements.
20. Which of the looping statements is/are supported by PHP?
A. for loop
B. while loop
C. do-while loop
D. foreach loop
E. A) and B)
F. A), B) and C)
G. All of the mentioned
H. None of the mentioned
Description: PHP supports advanced foreach loop along with other mentioned
common loop statements.

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21. What will be the output of the following PHP code?
<?php
$today = "Monday";
switch ($today) {
case "Saturday":
echo "Beginning of the week. ";
case "Monday":
echo "Middle of the week. ";
case "Thursday":
echo "End of the week. ";
}
?>
A. Error
B. Beginning of the week.
C. Middle of the week.
D. Middle of the week. End of the week.
E. End of the week.
Description: When the break statement is not present, all subsequent case blocks
will execute until a break statement is found.
22. What will be returned when the following PHP code is executed?
<?php
$a = 12;
echo ($a == 12) ? 5 : 1;
?>
A. 12
B. 1
C. Error
D. 5
Description: The above PHP segment used ternary operator. If condition is true then
the part just after the ? operator is executed otherwise the part after : operator.

10. PHP Basic and Fundamental Questions and Answers with Detail Explanation
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23. What will be the output of the following PHP code?
<?php
$users = array("absherzad", "salam", "sattar", "wahid");
for ($x=0; $x < count($users); $x++) {
if ($users[$x] == "absherzad") continue;
echo $users[$x] . " ";
}
?>
A. absherzad
B. salam sattar
C. absherzad salam sattar
D. salam sattar wahid
Description: The continue statement works opposite of break statement, thus,
causes execution of the current loop iteration to end and start at the beginning of
the next iteration.
24. What is the value of $a and $b after the function call?
<?php
function doSomething( &$arg ) {
$return = $arg;
$arg += 1;
return $return;
}
$a = 3;
$b = doSomething( $a );
echo "$a<br>$b";
?>
A. a is 3 and b is 4.
B. a is 4 and b is 3.
C. Both are 3.
D. Both are 4.
Description: Because $arg is passed by reference the variable $a is 4, on the other
hand, because the return value of the function is a copy of the initial value of the
$arg the variable $b is 3.

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25. Who is the father of PHP?
A. Rasmus Lerdorf
B. Willam Makepiece
C. Drek Kolkevi
D. List Barely
PART II – Multiple choice questions focuses on PHP built-in functions,
arrays, filters, regular expression, and file systems:
1. Which one of the following PHP functions can be used to find files?
A. glob()
B. file()
C. fold()
D. get_file()
Description: The glob() function in PHP searches for all the files based on the
matching pattern passed to it, as an example, glob("*.txt") searches all the text files
in the current directory.
2. Which of the following are correct ways of creating an array?
A. state[0] = "West Zone";
B. $state[] = array("West Zone");
C. $state[0] = " West Zone";
D. $state = array("West Zone");
Description: option (A) is not correct because in PHP a variable name must start
with $ symbol. Option (B) is not correct because the square brackets [] are not valid
characters in a variable name.

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3. What will be the output of the following PHP code?
<?php
$fruits = array ("apple", "orange", array ("pear", "mango"),
"banana");
echo (count($fruits, 1));
?>
A. 3
B. 4
C. 5
D. 6
Description: The echo (count($fruits)); statement does not count the items of the
multidimensional arrays, therefore, it prints 4. If the second optional mode
parameter is set to 1, the count() function will recursively count the array, therefore,
the array entity holding "pear" and "mango" items is also counted.
4. What will be the output of the following PHP code?
<?php
$var = 300;
$int_options = array("options" => array ("min_range" => 0,
"max_range" => 256));
if (!filter_var($var, FILTER_VALIDATE_INT, $int_options))
echo("Integer is not valid");
else
echo("Integer is valid");
?>
A. No output is returned
B. Integer is not valid
C. Integer is valid
D. Error
Description: Since the integer value of the variable $var is "300"; and 300 is not in
the specified range, so, the output of the code above will be: "Integer is not valid".

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5. Which one of the following regular expression matches any string
containing zero or one p?
A. p+
B. p*
C. P?
D. p#
Description:
 The ? (question mark) matches when the preceding character occurs 0 or 1
times only.
 The * (asterisk or star) matches when the preceding character occurs 0 or
more times.
 The + (plus) matches when the preceding character occurs 1 or more times.
6. The filesize() function returns the file size in ___.
A. bits
B. bytes
C. kilobytes
D. gigabytes
Description: The filesize() function returns the size of the file in bytes, or FALSE (and
generates an error of level E_WARNING) in case of an error.
7. Which one of the following function reads a directory into an Array?
A. scandir()
B. readdir()
C. scandirectory()
D. readdirectory()
Description: The scandir() function returns an array consisting of files and directories
found in directory or returns FALSE on error.

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PART III – Explain these easy but yet tricky questions:
1. Explain why the following PHP code returns 3.2 instead of 5:
<?php
$number = 020;
echo $number / 5;
?>
Description: The output of the above code segment is 3.2. This is because in PHP
starting a number with 0 means octal (base 8), therefore, octal 020 is equal 16 in
decimal. Thus, 16 / 5 = 3.2
2. What is the output of the following PHP snippet? Explain why is that
the output?
<?php
echo print(10);
?>
Description: The print always returns 1. Therefore, print statement first print the
value 10, and then return 1 which is then echoed by the echo statement, as a result,
the output is 101.