Statements: While

The general format of a while statement is

while ( expression ) statement

If the expression tests true, the single statement that follows is executed, and the process is repeated. If the expression tests false, control transfers to the point immediately following the end of the while statement. The loop body (that is, the single statement) is executed zero or more times. Consider the following:

$i = 1;
while ($i <= 10) {
  echo "$i\t".($i * $i)."\n"; // output a table of squares
  ++$i;
}

1	1
2	4
3	9
4	16
5	25
6	36
7	49
8	64
9	81
10	100

The execution of a while statement is impacted by a subordinate break or continue.

The controlling expression is often a combination of relational, equality, and logical expressions. For example:

while (($i <= 10 && $j !== 0)) || !getStatus() {
  ...
}

The controlling expression must have type bool or a type that can be implicitly converted to bool. For example, in while (1) ..., while (123) ..., and while (-1.234e24) ..., in each case, the value of the expression is non-zero, which is implicitly converted to true. Only zero-values are converted to false.

The do/while statement behaves slightly differently than while in that the former executes the loop body before it tests the controlling expression, whereas while executes it after.

See compound statements for a discussion about the use of braces around the statement body.