Creating a variable in PHP is known as declaring it. Declaring a variable is as simple as using its name in your script:

$my_first_variable;

When PHP first sees a variable ’ s name in a script, it automatically creates the variable at that point. When you declare a variable in PHP, it ’ s good practice to assign a value to it at the same time. This is known as initializing a variable. By doing this, anyone reading your code knows exactly what value the variable holds at the time it ’ s created. (If you don ’ t initialize a variable in PHP, it ’ s given the default value of null .) Here ’ s an example of declaring and initializing a variable:

$my_first_variable = 3;

This creates the variable called $my_first_variable , and uses the = operator to assign it a value of 3. (You look at = and other operators later) Looking back at the addition example earlier, the following script creates two variables, initializes them with the values 5 and 6 , then outputs their sum ( 11 ):

$x = 5;
$y = 6;
echo $x + $y;