Costanti

Indice dei contenuti

Una costante è un identificatore (nome) per un valore. Come si può intuire, tale valore non può cambiare durante l'esecuzione dello script (fanno eccezione le costanti magiche, che, in realtà, non sono costanti). Le costanti sono "case-sensitive". È convenzione comune che gli identificatori delle costanti siano sempre maiuscoli.

Nota:

Prima di PHP 8.0.0, le costanti definite utilizzando la funzione define() possono non fare distinzione tra maiuscole e minuscole.

In PHP il nome di una costante segue le regole di qualsiasi "etichetta". Un nome di costante valido inizia con una lettera o underscore, seguita da un numero qualsiasi di caratteri alfanumerici o underscore. L'espressione regolare che esprime questa convenzione è: ^[a-zA-Z_\x80-\xff][a-zA-Z0-9_\x80-\xff]*$

È possibile eseguire la funzione define() per definire costanti con nomi riservati o addirittura non validi, il cui valore può essere recuperato solo con la funzione constant(). Tuttavia, non è consigliabile farlo.

Suggerimento

Si può anche consultare Guida Denominazione Spazio Utente.

Example #1 Nomi di costanti validi ed errati

<?php

// Nomi validi
define("FOO", "something");
define("FOO2", "something else");
define("FOO_BAR", "something more")

// Nomi di costante errati
define("2FOO", "something");

// Nomi validi, ma da evitare:
// un domani potrebbero essere utilizzati dal PHP per fornire costanti magiche
// e quindi si avrebbero problemi nello script
define("__FOO__", "something");

?>

Nota: In questo contesto una lettera è a-z, A-Z e i caratteri ASCII dal 128 al 255 (0x80-0xff).

Come le superglobals, costante è sempre globale. Si può accedere alle costanti da qualsiasi punto dello script senza tenere conto della visibilità. Per maggiori dettagli sulla visibilità, leggere la sezione scope della variable.

Nota: A partire da PHP 7.1.0, le costanti di classe possono dichiarare una visibilità protetta o privata, rendendole disponibili solo nello scope gerarchico della classe in cui è definita.

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User Contributed Notes 14 notes

up
220
wbcarts at juno dot com
11 years ago
11/14/2016 - note updated by sobak
-----

CONSTANTS and PHP Class Definitions

Using "define('MY_VAR', 'default value')" INSIDE a class definition does not work as expected. You have to use the PHP keyword 'const' and initialize it with a scalar value -- boolean, int, float, string (or array in PHP 5.6+) -- right away.

<?php

define
('MIN_VALUE', '0.0');   // RIGHT - Works OUTSIDE of a class definition.
define('MAX_VALUE', '1.0');   // RIGHT - Works OUTSIDE of a class definition.

//const MIN_VALUE = 0.0;         RIGHT - Works both INSIDE and OUTSIDE of a class definition.
//const MAX_VALUE = 1.0;         RIGHT - Works both INSIDE and OUTSIDE of a class definition.

class Constants
{
 
//define('MIN_VALUE', '0.0');  WRONG - Works OUTSIDE of a class definition.
  //define('MAX_VALUE', '1.0');  WRONG - Works OUTSIDE of a class definition.

 
const MIN_VALUE = 0.0;      // RIGHT - Works INSIDE of a class definition.
 
const MAX_VALUE = 1.0;      // RIGHT - Works INSIDE of a class definition.

 
public static function getMinValue()
  {
    return
self::MIN_VALUE;
  }

  public static function
getMaxValue()
  {
    return
self::MAX_VALUE;
  }
}

?>

#Example 1:
You can access these constants DIRECTLY like so:
* type the class name exactly.
* type two (2) colons.
* type the const name exactly.

#Example 2:
Because our class definition provides two (2) static functions, you can also access them like so:
* type the class name exactly.
* type two (2) colons.
* type the function name exactly (with the parentheses).

<?php

#Example 1:
$min = Constants::MIN_VALUE;
$max = Constants::MAX_VALUE;

#Example 2:
$min = Constants::getMinValue();
$max = Constants::getMaxValue();

?>

Once class constants are declared AND initialized, they cannot be set to different values -- that is why there are no setMinValue() and setMaxValue() functions in the class definition -- which means they are READ-ONLY and STATIC (shared by all instances of the class).
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5
warwick dot jm dot barnes at gmail dot com
3 years ago
The documentation says, "You can access constants anywhere in your script without regard to scope", but it's worth keeping in mind that a const declaration must appear in the source file before the place where it's used.

This doesn't work (using PHP 5.4):
<?php
foo
();
const
X = 1;
function
foo() {
    echo
"Value of X: " . X;
}
?>
Result: "Value of X: X"

But this works:
<?php
const X = 1;
foo();
function
foo() {
    echo
"Value of X: " . X;
}
?>
Result: "Value of X: 1"

This is potentially confusing because you can refer to a function that occurs later in your source file, but not a constant. Even though the const declaration is processed at compile time, it behaves a bit like it's being processed at run time.
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19
ewspencer at industrex dot com
20 years ago
I find using the concatenation operator helps disambiguate value assignments with constants. For example, setting constants in a global configuration file:

<?php
define
('LOCATOR',   "/locator");
define('CLASSES',   LOCATOR."/code/classes");
define('FUNCTIONS', LOCATOR."/code/functions");
define('USERDIR',   LOCATOR."/user");
?>

Later, I can use the same convention when invoking a constant's value for static constructs such as require() calls:

<?php
require_once(FUNCTIONS."/database.fnc");
require_once(
FUNCTIONS."/randchar.fnc");
?>

as well as dynamic constructs, typical of value assignment to variables:

<?php
$userid 
= randchar(8,'anc','u');
$usermap = USERDIR."/".$userid.".png";
?>

The above convention works for me, and helps produce self-documenting code.

-- Erich
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12
Raheel Khan
9 years ago
class constant are by default public in nature but they cannot be assigned visibility factor and in turn gives syntax error

<?php

class constants {

    const
MAX_VALUE = 10;
        public const
MIN_VALUE =1;

}

// This will work
echo constants::MAX_VALUE;

// This will return syntax error
echo constants::MIN_VALUE;
?>
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7
gried at NOSPAM dot nsys dot by
8 years ago
Lets expand comment of 'storm' about usage of undefined constants. His claim that 'An undefined constant evaluates as true...' is wrong and right at same time. As said further in documentation ' If you use an undefined constant, PHP assumes that you mean the name of the constant itself, just as if you called it as a string...'. So yeah, undefined global constant when accessed directly will be resolved as string equal to name of sought constant (as thought PHP supposes that programmer had forgot apostrophes and autofixes it) and non-zero non-empty string converts to True.

There are two ways to prevent this:
1. always use function constant('CONST_NAME') to get constant value (BTW it also works for class constants - constant('CLASS_NAME::CONST_NAME') );
2. use only class constants (that are defined inside of class using keyword const) because they are not converted to string when not found but throw exception instead (Fatal error: Undefined class constant).
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12
katana at katana-inc dot com
22 years ago
Warning, constants used within the heredoc syntax (http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.types.string.php) are not interpreted!

Editor's Note: This is true. PHP has no way of recognizing the constant from any other string of characters within the heredoc block.
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8
Andreas R.
16 years ago
If you are looking for predefined constants like
* PHP_OS (to show the operating system, PHP was compiled for; php_uname('s') might be more suitable),
* DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR ("\\" on Win, '/' Linux,...)
* PATH_SEPARATOR (';' on Win, ':' on Linux,...)
they are buried in 'Predefined Constants' under 'List of Reserved Words' in the appendix:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/reserved.constants.php
while the latter two are also mentioned in 'Directory Functions'
http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.dir.php
up
7
hafenator2000 at yahoo dot com
18 years ago
PHP Modules also define constants.  Make sure to avoid constant name collisions.  There are two ways to do this that I can think of.
First: in your code make sure that the constant name is not already used.  ex. <?php if (! defined("CONSTANT_NAME")) { Define("CONSTANT_NAME","Some Value"); } ?>  This can get messy when you start thinking about collision handling, and the implications of this.
Second: Use some off prepend to all your constant names without exception  ex. <?php Define("SITE_CONSTANT_NAME","Some Value"); ?>

Perhaps the developers or documentation maintainers could recommend a good prepend and ask module writers to avoid that prepend in modules.
up
0
mparsa1372 at gmail dot com
3 years ago
<?php
//Syntax of define constant in php
//define(name, value, case-insensitive);

//it will print 100 in output
define('BOOK',100);
echo
BOOK;

//it will print 200 in output
define('book', 200 , true);
echo
book;

//results of all are the same
echo '<br>';
echo
BOOK;
echo
'<br>';
echo
book;
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0
Sumon Mahmud (Abu Taleb)
4 years ago
define('MYKEY', 'The value is from outside of class');
class Abc{
   
    const MAX = 10;    

    public function __construct(){
        define('TEST', 'hello world! '); // using define function in class constructor
    }
    public function getOutput(){
        echo TEST . MYKEY . PHP_EOL; // accessing constants from outside of class
    }
}

$obj = new Abc();  // define function will call
$obj->getOutput(); // hello world! The value is from outside of class

echo Abc::MAX . PHP_EOL; // 10 - accessing constant using scope resolution

echo TEST; // hello world!  Because the constants is defined while constructor call
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6
storm
18 years ago
An undefined constant evaluates as true when not used correctly. Say for example you had something like this:

settings.php
<?php
// Debug mode
define('DEBUG',false);
?>

test.php
<?php
include('settings.php');

if (
DEBUG) {
  
// echo some sensitive data.
}
?>

If for some reason settings.php doesn't get included and the DEBUG constant is not set, PHP will STILL print the sensitive data. The solution is to evaluate it. Like so:

settings.php
<?php
// Debug mode
define('DEBUG',0);
?>

test.php
<?php
include('settings.php');

if (
DEBUG == 1) {
  
// echo some sensitive data.
}
?>

Now it works correctly.
up
-2
jcastromail at yahoo dot es
6 years ago
Performance of constants.  PHP 7.1.10 32 bits (Opcache active, windows 10 i7-64bits) but apparently the trends is the same with the 5.x

using a constant declared by DEFINE('CNS',value) : 0.63575601577759s
using a constant declared by const CNS=value : 0.61372208595276s
using a variable declared by $v=value : 0.51184010505676s

In average, the use of DEFINE and CONST is around the same with some sightly  better performance of CONST instead of DEFINE. However, using a variable is around 10-50% better than to use a constant.  So, for a performance intensive task, constant is not the best option.

$p1=microtime(true);
$x=0;
for($i=0;$i<50000000;$i++) {
    $x+=CNS;
}
$p2=microtime(true);
up
-24
php at webflips dot net
9 years ago
It is perfectly valid to use a built-in PHP keyword as a constant name - as long as you the constant() function to retrieve it later:

<?php
define
('echo', 'My constant value');

echo
constant('echo'); // outputs 'My constant value'
?>
up
-48
xs2ilyas at gmail dot com
7 years ago
When we start a constant name with space, it doesn't produce any error.

<?php
  define
(" YEAR"2000)
  echo
"success";
?>

output: success

But when we call this constant, it produce error.

<?php
  define
(" YEAR"2000)
  echo
YEAR;
?>

output: E_NOTICE :  type 8 -- Use of undefined constant YEAR - assumed 'YEAR' -- at line 4 YEAR
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