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# Chapter 13. Constants

A constant is an identifier (name) for a simple value. As the name suggests, that value cannot change during the execution of the script (except for magic constants, which aren't actually constants). A constant is case-sensitive by default. By convention, constant identifiers are always uppercase.

The name of a constant follows the same rules as any label in PHP. A valid constant name starts with a letter or underscore, followed by any number of letters, numbers, or underscores. As a regular expression, it would be expressed thusly: [a-zA-Z_\x7f-\xff][a-zA-Z0-9_\x7f-\xff]*

Example 13-1. Valid and invalid constant names
`<?php // Valid constant names define("FOO", "something"); define("FOO2", "something else"); define("FOO_BAR", "something more"); // Invalid constant names define("2FOO", "something"); // This is valid, but should be avoided: // PHP may one day provide a magical constant // that will break your script define("__FOO__", "something"); ?>`

> Note: For our purposes here, a letter is a-z, A-Z, and the ASCII characters from 127 through 255 (0x7f-0xff).

Like superglobals, the scope of a constant is global. You can access constants anywhere in your script without regard to scope. For more information on scope, read the manual section on variable scope.

# Syntax

You can define a constant by using the define()-function. Once a constant is defined, it can never be changed or undefined.

Only scalar data (boolean, integer, float and string) can be contained in constants.

You can get the value of a constant by simply specifying its name. Unlike with variables, you should not prepend a constant with a $. You can also use the function constant() to read a constant's value if you wish to obtain the constant's name dynamically. Use get_defined_constants() to get a list of all defined constants.

> Note: Constants and (global) variables are in a different namespace. This implies that for example `TRUE` and $TRUE are generally different.

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 (CONSTANT vs "CONSTANT"). An error of level E_NOTICE will be issued when this happens. See also the manual entry on why $foo[bar] is wrong (unless you first define() bar as a constant). If you simply want to check if a constant is set, use the defined() function.

These are the differences between constants and variables:

- Constants do not have a dollar sign ($) before them;

- Constants may only be defined using the define() function, not by simple assignment;

- Constants may be defined and accessed anywhere without regard to variable scoping rules;

- Constants may not be redefined or undefined once they have been set; and

- Constants may only evaluate to scalar values.

Example 13-2. Defining Constants
`<?php define("CONSTANT", "Hello world."); echo CONSTANT; // outputs "Hello world." echo Constant; // outputs "Constant" and issues a notice. ?>`

See also Class Constants.

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