定数

目次

定数は、値のためのID(名前)です。この名前が示すように、定数の値は スクリプト実行中に変更できません (マジック定数 は例外です。これは実際は定数ではありません)。 定数は大文字小文字を区別します。慣習的に、 定数は常に大文字で表記されます。

注意:

PHP 8.0.0 より前のバージョンでは、 define() 関数を使って定義された定数は、 大文字小文字を区別しない場合がありました。

定数の名前は、PHP のラベルと同じ規則に従います。有効な定数の名前は、 文字またはアンダースコアで始まり、任意の数の文字、数字、 アンダースコアが後に続きます。正規表現で示すと次のようになります。 ^[a-zA-Z_\x80-\xff][a-zA-Z0-9_\x80-\xff]*$

define() 関数を使うと、 予約語や有効でない名前の定数を定義することが可能です。 この場合の定数の値は constant() 関数によってのみ取得できますが、 このような使い方は推奨できません。

ヒント

ユーザーレベルでの命名の手引き も参照ください。

例1 有効/無効な定数名の例

<?php

// 有効な定数名
define("FOO", "something");
define("FOO2", "something else");
define("FOO_BAR", "something more");

// 無効な定数名
define("2FOO", "something");

// 有効だが、避けるべき。
// 将来 PHP に定数の予約語が追加された場合に
// スクリプトが動作しなくなる可能性がある
define("__FOO__", "something");

?>

注意: 本節の目的においては、文字は a-z, A-Z, および128から255まで (0x80-0xff)のASCII文字を指します。

スーパーグローバルと同様に定数のスコープはグローバルです。 つまり、スコープによらずスクリプトの中ではどこでも定数に アクセスできます。スコープの詳細についてはマニュアルの 変数のスコープ をご覧ください。

注意: PHP 7.1.0 以降では、クラス定数は protected または private として宣言でき、 それが定義されたクラス階層のスコープでのみ利用可能にすることができます。

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User Contributed Notes 9 notes

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246
wbcarts at juno dot com
12 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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21
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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26
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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13
warwick dot jm dot barnes at gmail dot com
4 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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16
hafenator2000 at yahoo dot com
19 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
22
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
up
13
Andreas R.
17 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
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11
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;
?>
up
11
storm
19 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.
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