text: in php, what is the difference with .= after $disp as opposed to just the equal sign? i mean  $disp .=  as opposed to $disp = php has a operator that allows the user to join two variables together. and that operator is a dot (.)  so if you have this:  ==============================  ==============  the above will print: hi m0  when we say equal it is intializing that variable to that. like ==== $a = 1; $b = 2; ==== so if i print out a it will be 1 or if i prinf out b it will be 2.  if i say: ==== $a = 1; $c = $a.'3'; print $c; ==== that will print out  13  you could have other forms of operators such as: === $a =1; $a += 2; ===  a will print out 3 since (a += b) is the same as   a = a + b;  the correct word for it would be concatentation between variables, the other operators like - or + are only valid for numbers integers.  good luck on your quest.