Using braces “{ }”, i.e. curly parentheses, will make your life very easy. The braces will allow you to use complex variable expressions inside strings. This is called complex (curly) syntax. In other words you are encapsulating your variable call structure so it is parsed by PHP before continuing with the string. If you are working with an array or nested arrays and you want to insert the array element values into a database, or use within a sting, you will have to define new dedicated variables, to which you will assign the value of the array element. Or you will have to utilize addition string concatenation. Both ways make your code longer and harder to read.

Using HTTPS allows for secure and encrypted communication between your web site and the visitor’s browser. Sometimes the transition doesn’t happen automatically so we need to enforce that secure communication between the server and the client, e.g. when using a shopping cart. One way to automatically switch from HTTP to HTTPS, using php, is a quick check of the HTTP indice in the $_SERVER array.