PHP - Operator Value != When It Seems To Be ==

I'm having trouble understanding the behavior of Prefix decrementing operator VS. Postfix decrementing Operator

Postfix decrementing Operator
Code: [Select]
<?php

$a = 1;

$a = --$a + 1;

echo $a;

// this outputs 1

?>


VS....

Prefix decrementing operator
Code: [Select]
<?php

$a = 1;

$a = $a-- + 1;

echo $a;

// this outputs 2

?>

Hi

Ok, so I pick a random value 23 for example and I want this value to be in between two other values.
E.g. if 23 is in between 20 and 30, then continue otherwise die.

How can I do this?

I've been looking through the Joomla docs trying to understand how everything works and I've seen something that I don't understand and cannot find an answer to anywhere on the net.

The basic question is what is the ampersand used for in this conditional he

if (!($mask & 1) && is_string($var)) {

The two in the middle are obviously the AND part of the conditional.  I know it can be used for creating references to variables but I don't think this is what is happening here.  I've seen people using it to test for odd and even numbers too but with no explanation of how it works/what it does.  The full code is below:


function _cleanVar($var, $mask = 0, $type=null)
    {
        // Static input filters for specific settings
        static $noHtmlFilter    = null;
        static $safeHtmlFilter    = null;
 
        // If the no trim flag is not set, trim the variable
                if (!($mask & 1) && is_string($var)) {
            $var = trim($var);
        }
 
        // Now we handle input filtering
                if ($mask & 2)
        {
            // If the allow raw flag is set, do not modify the variable
                        $var = $var;
        }
        elseif ($mask & 4)
        {
            // If the allow html flag is set, apply a safe html filter to the variable
                        if (is_null($safeHtmlFilter)) {
                $safeHtmlFilter = & JFilterInput::getInstance(null, null, 1, 1);
            }
            $var = $safeHtmlFilter->clean($var, $type);
        }
        else
        {
            // Since no allow flags were set, we will apply the most strict filter to the variable
                        if (is_null($noHtmlFilter)) {
                $noHtmlFilter = & JFilterInput::getInstance(/* $tags, $attr, $tag_method, $attr_method, $xss_auto */);
            }
            $var = $noHtmlFilter->clean($var, $type);
        }
        return $var;
    }

I see a couple people using the ? operator in php and was curious as to how it works?

Hi
I'm trying to work why the following paramter doesnt work properly. it seems to be ignoring the 'and' part of the query
i am using a mysql    5.1.41  server

$stmt = $mysqli ->prepare("select CandidateVotes,CandidateTitle, CandidatefirstName ,CandidateLastName,CandidateID from Candidate where ( CandidateFirstName like ? and  CandidateLastName like ?) order by CandidateVotes DESC LIMIT 0,?");
           $stmt->bind_param('sss', $code1,$code2,$noVotes);
         
         $code1="%".$searchFirstName."%";
         $code2="%".$searchLastName."%";
          $stmt->execute();
         $stmt->bind_result($candidateVotes,$candidateTitle,$candidateFirstName,$candidateLastName,$candidateID);