But we're here to look at the certification. Why take the exam? This was kind of our agenda we're going to look at today. Mmm. Basically what the top level subject matter is for what the exam covers, how to give me some tips, give you some tips on how to prepare for it. [inaudible]

Oh, some examples, some gotchas. And then of course some further reading for further resources. So why do this? Well, you want to prove maybe to yourself that you are proficient in be language. Oh, you want to prove to your clients if you have your own company or you work for a company and you also want to prove to your boss or bosses that you know what you're doing. Basically it's proof that you, to somebody or yourself that you know you have a certain level of expertise. Mmm. In the language. And again, you have recognition from peers, other people that I recognize the certification and you get to use the, just turn them out of logos and things a few feet in the top right corner of my slide here. Since realized engineering, we've got to use that logo and I added it to my business cards and so on.

Okay. Okay. About the test. The Zen certification and the nomad one, we'll try and point out differences where I can. There is quite a bit of overlap in the general addressing of of the exam itself. You will be told if you pass or fail right away. I was quite disappointed the first time I passed. I was in a secure test room and [inaudible]. All right, my hand nervously hovered over the submit button with the mouse, click the button and I said it just said congratulations. You passed. There was no blooms or fanfare. Nobody come in dancing, clowns, nothing like that. So don't expect a whole lot of fanfare, but it is certainly it's satisfying when you pass it. The passing grade is I think for the Zen certification they never told us. But in the nomad it's 75%. So roughly take again, I said you don't need to be 70% or better proficient in the language before you take this test. In order to pass the test. Sorry.

We want to know what about [inaudible] can take a little minute to philosophize about it. The certification. Yeah. Does it actually hold any value? There's, there's some Mmm. You know, argument one way or the other. In my experience, I have yet to see actually see a job [inaudible] ad that says required sin certification. But does it give you a leg up? I think it certainly does. Mmm. The question here on this page here though, is that, which tests should you take? Could you take the Zen while Zen is changing hands? Quite often nowadays. That's why I say who owns them this month? So it was rogue wave at one point, and now there's a company called for force that owns them. The remains you'd be seeing weather per forest will continue the, the emphasis behind the Zen certification. The last one on their website says it's 2017. The name of the certification test is 2017 PHP. So that's already a couple of years old and we don't know necessarily where that's heading. Mmm.

And then you have to compare it as, as in does the Ahmed test have any more or less value per se in the market place or was it certification? And then my last point there is then sort of vacation testing. Is it on the wane? And it's no way ahead on the wax. Let's see, on the rise. So some of these are, like I say, philosophical questions and they take a little while too. You'll have to research them yourself. And sorta whether you, it's a value to you. So basically on the test it's up, like I said, it's up for you to decide. I certainly endorse it. It's something that you at the very least it's like take self self pride in, Oh, okay. Cost for Zen is currently 195 us dollars to take the test. Yeah. Nomads is part of their monthly subscription of 1995 a month. And then within that you can take the test.

Okay. But basically it's a recommendation to actually be programming in the language day to day for at least two years before you even consider taking the test. So keep that as a bit of a benchmark. The certification exam, there's 75 questions in Zen certified and there's 105 questions from go back exam. And these are the overall general categories that we will, that are covered in the exam. And today during this webinar we will be going over briefly some of these different categories, all of these different categories, Oh, with some examples and some discussions, what to expect inside each category.

So my first point there is make sure you know what test you're what version you're testing forward. Is it 7.0 7.3 7.4? Is that now from the tests up to date? Who knows? Really. I mean you have to do that research yourself. When I say who knows, I meant with 2017 BHP test name for Zander. It's hard to know what version you're, you're writing against. You can kind of guess it's 7.0 because of the date, but is it 7.1 et cetera? Well, keep in mind the both tests assume the display mornings is on. So it's almost like a testing environment where you will get a feed back on error codes and things. Full production environment where generally you keep your air messages to yourself. Both tests are or timed. And like I mentioned before, the Zen test is in a secure offsite room where you leave everything about you, you leave everything behind except your just yourself.

You can't wear a watch, you can't take your wallet into it to give you a pen and paper. And your ship sat down at a computer desk. That's a little disconcerting in that since some people get, might get nervous in that kind of environment, but the nomad test is a little less intimidating and it's a, it's an online test also assume that your VHB tags are [inaudible] in place properly. So there will be no syntax errors surrounding your code. So don't be thinking that some of that might trigger warning things based on opening closing PHP tags.

So the basic level of certification is what you want to look at. And I'll use the term here lightly simple stuff. What is the concatenation operator? Some of the things you would do that you certainly know you have to get to know in your first month or two of actually programming in PHP, really elementary stuff, things like how would you control all the PHP environment? While that's with the PHP that I and I file in generally, I mean, obviously there's other ways around that, but those kinds of simple things are within the basics. We're also going to have some questions as we go along here. Okay. And you can kind of ask them yourselves. This is some of the kind of questions you will see in either of these types of exams. And this is a basic one. What, what is PHP program then? Is it program than PHB or C or C plus plus or Kobo. So you're gonna get some red herring type answers as well. So obviously we know it's not done in PHP cause that would be redundant. It's not done in COBOL cause that's ridiculous. Ah, so it's either in C or S in that sense. You can kind of look at the question would look down to the most logical ones, the answers. And then if you have to guess, you can at least make an educated guess.

So the answer here is yes, it's written in C. So there are some simple questions. Remember you're going to get between 90 and 105 questions. So there are going to be some simple ones as well. [inaudible] You will have some multiple choice ones as well. How can P S be code? We embedded in, well in version five, three of these, four of these used to be valid, so you have to keep current on your versions. Then realize that now only these two about these two methods are used for embedding H a PHP and HTML.

And the question Mark, equal sign is frowned upon. So basically it's just the question Mark PHP tag that it was primarily the way to embed your code. So again, these are some basic the questions that you will face. This last one, the script line engage be even if that was valid, we'll see the syntax of it is wrong at the bottom there. The closing tag doesn't have a forward slash so that alone if it was valid, there might be some syntax issues within the sample that make it invalid so they can be tricky. These kinds of questions. Okay. Again, some basics. You don't have to know the operators concatenations the math comparison operators and assignment operators. There are others as well. This spaceship one is angle bracket here at the bar. At the end of the comparison, one that's new in version seven, I believe. 7.0 so again, you have to keep up on your versions to know what you're going to be test just before. Yeah. What is the output here of this code?

I can leave that Mmm. Open for a little bit and let you guys take it away. Take it out yourselves. So the key thing here is you have to know your operators. What will be output here is 55 is 55. And the reason that is is even though you're doing a logical, if comparison, you're using the single equal sign in the decision, which in effect is an assignment variable. So you're assigning the value of 55 to [inaudible] the variable a [inaudible], which will always be true. Therefore, you're always going to get into the echo a is 55 and since you assigned it in the F statement, obviously I'll put that is 55. Yes. 55. So you're not going to really see some of the you know, a equals 35 irrelevant in this case. And because of the condition being an assignment rather than it test, you'll never get into the false, the else got it. A condition of this. So be aware of that in your, in your questions. Some of them are going to be have red herring like tangents in them and you just kind of have to be aware of your syntax.

Again, your basics, you're going to have to know all your data type string, integer, float though wills and so on. How they interact. You can convert one to the other how they compare and so on. Don't have to know your rules for naming a variable. I was stretched with the dollar sign. Then let her underscore and then the letter digit or another underscore and also be aware that there are such a thing. There is such a thing as variable variables. So those can be kind of a gotcha thing as well. They're there rarely used. I don't use it myself very often. Variable or variables, but okay, it's part of the language and therefore a testable material. Define Constance, believe it or not. That's the basic concept. How do you create them with the defined function? Mmm.

Values cannot be changed once they're defined, they have global scope and so on. The some things you'll have to know that are deprecated. So you've gotta be aware of those. Mmm. Depending on your test that you're taking. And the last point here in defined consequences as a PHP seven find constants can now actually hold Ray values as well. Before this time, before PHP seven, they weren't able to. So again, here's an example. What does the output of this code? So we're defining a define a constant. Here we're using the true option, which I just mentioned is deprecated. So it kind of depends on what version you were in.

And we also saw that the rule was we can't, Mmm. Redefine, I had to find constant. Is that true? So if we're in version 7.2 or below, this would be a kind of the question, what would the put, this is kind of what you're offered a while. Believe it or not, this is the correct answer because you can redefine a, Mmm, okay. A defined constant lever. So the defined value, or this is my constant, is true with the true option. You echo with the value, you define it again, that all of that redefines it within PHP. And that's a balance thing to do. You can't do that. So the point is you can't assign it something new without the defined function. So there's idiosyncrasies and nuances that you have to be aware of.

Now, the same question is what happens in a version 7.3 and above? Wow. We get the same output, but we get some, Mmm. Notices that the defined third parameter is deprecated. So again, met, you have to remember that you're [inaudible] notifications are on when you're taking your tests. So you would expect, Oh, that was kind of deprecated announcement or notification when you're running code line graph. Next topic is strings. So there's every coverage in the test here. Well, lots of the web is display is displaying strings. So Mmm. BHP is heavy into that and we're doing a lot of formatting and merging of strings and so on within PHP. So that's part of the test. [inaudible].

So you have to know what strings can be delimited by single or double quotes. This again is, is almost a basic concept because of how often strings are used within BHP. Yeah. You have to kind of know that a double coats are slower to process parse because they have the ability to interpret embedded variables. So again, here's a quick question. If you decide to find my VAR, whether this and you echo, this is my bar. Oh, [inaudible] the airport is this, is this because within the double quotes [inaudible] ah, PSP will interpret what the value of my of our is and I'll put that to the screen. [inaudible]

Other types of string manipulations can be done with your doc and now doc notches on those. The name must be start and we've used at the end have an asterick share beside the ending identifier must not be indented. No, I'll show you a little difference in that coming up. Even though it's a must not an a rule, there is a variation of the rule, so you can be aware of that. So the update, the Oh, put here is a here doc, is it stored into a variable called STR and I'm using my name variable within that. So because it's here, doc double quotes treated the same as the double quote strings so it can interpret the value of my name. So the output is valid question Mark. Does that all look right? Well if you remember the [inaudible] you're going to get Parsa her because the here doc Terminator, your doc underscore example is indented. So in basic straight code, that is a the purse there.

They've changed it in version 7.3 and above where you can define here docs within a class definition. And here the EOT is the name of the here doc and the ending of the EOT, I was in the, the class is indented. So that's valid. Mmm. Because it's within a diff class definition. Very a slight nuance there as well. So these are the kinds of things you need to know. And again, you wouldn't get this kind of information information probably without, like I said earlier, the two years plus of experience that everyday use PHP. How often do you use a hero arc in a class definition? [inaudible] Within two years of just, just getting started is probably rare and that's why, Mmm, okay. The evening Watts's you have to be aware of [inaudible].

So my FUBAR here doc works with an a class property or is it a parser or a syntax error? And like I said, it's quirks, new ones, 7.3 a raise, a raise or the next topic. They're big again in PHP now they're used everywhere. There's over 80 functions of an array based functions alone. So I just put it on that reference there. Mmm. For the list of array based functions and I counted them the other day. So there's at least 80 plus maybe 85. Do you have to know the mall? If the all good amount of them, because there's a lot of questions and probably by the time you're done of your, like I said, your two year recommendation of experience, you will no, a lot of the array functions and you'll have used it a lot. So here's an example. [inaudible]

Excuse me. Here's an example of some code. It says, what is the output of this code? So we've got two arrays or two rarely definitions, apples, oranges and grapes. And then we're using Kiwis and bananas as well. And what is the output here? Okay, so [inaudible] okay. You will see quick [inaudible] like that with a simple options to pick as, as the answers. Yeah. So I'll just kind of show that again to see what you use. I think of that. Yeah. So this is, this has some different nuances within the code sample. It makes you think, are they defining the array properly? There's no keys. That's OK. They're just a array string string values in the rain once you've named her fruit. Okay. Is the, for each named syntactically correct? Yes. Can we have the break in there, concatenate that with the echo dollar value and so on?

Yeah. Well, the problem here, I don't know if you noticed, is that it will fail with a syntax error because in the sample code we're concatenated trying to concatenate or add an array. Second array two, the first one with the dot equals and that's not how you merge arrays together so that if you look at this code again, yeah, the problem is right here in the DOD equal sign in the second line of code. So if you don't notice that, if you see, you think there might be something wrong in the, for each, you're going down the wrong path, those kinds of things, those kind of gotchas are possible within the test. So just going to be aware of those kind of places where you can get tripped up.

Okay. Okay. The next heavy area on the test area. Mmm. How big is the control structures? [inaudible] So we won't go into these very deeply, but think of the control statements. The, if then else, the different [inaudible] three different lease, three different great syntaxes of if the announcer, you can use it with semi-colons or call-ins, sorry, not semi-colons but curly braces and colons and so on. There's ternary syntax with a question Mark Colon. There's, while there's do Wiles or 40 inches, all kinds of different loops, control structures. When do you use a break? When do you use a continue and so on is go to, that's part of it. Nobody really uses that. Again, it's part of the language and possible to be questioned that on you might have a question like this, how many times will this loop process?

So Elvira's defined a seven [inaudible] you're doing a do or you're echoing something out, you're increasing the variable and you're doing a test. So again, there's not a whole lot of code here, but you could trip up, be tripped up by a simple syntax error. [inaudible] Is that gonna never run? Will it run forever or run only once, four times, seven times? Those kind of things when you're offered like four or five options is an answer that gives you an kind of a clue as to, well, maybe there's not going to 18 times, you know, that kind of thing. So again, how long do you think this will run? Well, you have to know your due while structure for one thing assuming the syntax is correct and this will run once, why will it run once? Because the do will run always runs once. And then the test follows. I do. We haven't, Mmm.

Well we actually changed the variable from seven. It starts at the value of seven and we've increased it by one. So on that point of the first iteration, which it right. Mmm, it is now eight, eight and eight is less than or equal to three. That's fault. Ah, so it only runs ones functions again, without going to too far into the functions, know that there's hunting [inaudible] and hundreds of functions. The kinds of things you need to know and the functions are the variable scope. You'll be asked about that global public, private, that kind of stuff. [inaudible] And the syntax, you'll know by the time you've had two to three years of growing experience, you'll know, but the needle and what I mean by needle in haystack and you have to kind of remember which function. It's kind of unfair in that sense because if you keep in mind the PHP is open source and programmed by multiple people around the world, that in the early days it didn't always follow the same syntax rules. So sometimes if it's a needle haystack kind of question when the function someone in Europe would have written it with needle first and haystack later, someone in another part of the world would have written at haystack needle.

Mmm. If you don't know what I mean by that, well, you will after two years, years of experience. Yeah. Mmm. And you'll know that some of the functions are named with underscores. Some of them are not. So you can kind of get tripped up, up on some of those as well. Here's an example. What is the output of this code? I'll give you a minute to look at it. We're defining two variables with some strings in it. We're using a global command inside a function. We're echoing the variables onto screen and we're calling the function.

So is this going to put out when in Rome do as Romans do, is they're going to put out what number zero, is it going to come? What I do as Romans do when in Rome? Well, if you caught that syntax, you can't, can't concatenate with a plus symbol. So we're going to get a hair. Oh, it was not an error, but I put up zero because you're Mmm. The syntax fails. So the reason I showed you that is it sometimes a problem looks like it's function unrelated. So I'll show you the code again, you might be looking around inside this is it. Oops. Is the code structured properly? Yeah. And meanwhile, the simple problem is we're using the plus symbol to concatenate strings rather than the dot. So there are some red herring type questions as well to be aware of.

Okay. At a basis as another area where you're sorry about my voice. I have to apologize for this. I call it, like I said earlier, the cold for two weeks. Some will struggle through databases, a basic SQL questions. You're going to know, you don't have to go all the ins and outs of SQL and nuances too deeply. But since PSP isn't an AMEC language and connects to that of bases, you have to know some basic, a SQL syntax, some basic PDO. Mmm. Which was PHP data objects. You expect some of those questions. So how to connect to a database and there will be some security overlap in the database type questions. So is there anything wrong with this syntax? You might get a question like this. Create a table. We have an ID, the first column, it's a big int Oh, the primary key and so on. And then three other fields.

This is again, a subtle one. If you don't know your syntax of gradings sequel statements and commands, you notice that here we're missing a comma. Oh. Some of these questions are going to be fine tuned like that. And you are yeah, that'd be looking all over the place for, okay. Little, little issue because of that. So part of the a test process is to try and not get too paranoid about it. And do you think where's the problem? Sometimes it's as simple as this, but would you notice a missing comma that easily? That's, those are the kind of pitfalls to watch out for web features.

You're going to have to know some concepts, general web communication concepts, [inaudible] what the get the posts and the file. Very super globals are I'll put buffers, cookies and sessions and supercoils those kinds of things. So be aware of those as well. And here's one and all that kind of question question. You might say the requests super global or is generally in this order and if you don't know what this EG PCs means, you'll have to look that up. I'm not prepared for this kind of a question. [inaudible] [inaudible] And is it true or false? Wow. Yes. Okay. Oh part of the problem here is that the request object, a super global is in my experience, rarely used. You usually go straight at the get or the post or the server or session. Even this, and I'm not really involved here the session, but those kinds of environment variables, I tend my code, I tend to go directly at those things rather than the request object [inaudible] super bubble, object oriented programming is growing and growing and important and use that within PHP.

It started kind of gaining momentum and PHP four and five was a major rewrite and how it operated and now it's almost as, as integrated. No, no. A program you use of the languages is regular straight code. So it's pretty big. We need to know the concepts. You know, how to build a class. I don't extend the class and how to create methods and properties and manage those. You might get a question like this. Okay. To trap errors in your object oriented code. Can you, you can use the builtin right class and you might get a list of [inaudible] options or I might ask you to just tell you and the word [inaudible].

And the answer here is yes. Exception class. So that's how he can handle it. Errors, you're in my coat, my slide. Nudist to PHP 7.4. Again, some of our, your exam, you probably won't face this yet, but he's gonna want to mention it. Because there the exam questions aren't up to 7.4 billion, 7.4 just came up last month. But something new to know about is now you can use type declarations in your Oh, property class properties. Okay. Well you can define the types of the [inaudible] of the properties within the class there. Like I said, I'd be a though ideas integer string is that name is a string. Okay.

In files and streams. This is kind of a, it's a little bit of a outside Mmm. Area. You're not going to get too many questions on this, I wouldn't think. But it's there, it's possible. It's part of the language. So therefore it's potentially part of the exam. You're going to have to know what F open is, file right file handles and the particular switches on each of those. What does our mean? What does our PLAs mean? What does w mean? And so on. Yeah. There are also high level security issues around these because you're tend to write directly to files on your system rather than putting stuff into a browser, which is you know, not correctly connecting to physical file folders and things. So there are security issues in using these. So you'll be asked some of those questions as well in shore in relation.

So you might see a question like this flock file handle combo. Mark underscore you in does what? W what is that going to do? Well, F lock locks a file. But if you don't know what the option of lock underscoring you in the is the net option you won't realize that what we're actually doing here is unlocking a file. Oh, you have to know the the switches and the twin triggers of the functions as well. So it was pretty detailed. And in this case, like I said, it releases a previously locked network file observers is API. We'll see, you'll see a few questions on XML in some light coverage of rest and soap type of questions. It's not heavily represented because not every buddy faces this kind of API type stuff on a day to day basis. Probably a little more chance. Are we doing X amount than rest stuff? But it is certainly on the rise. It's coming up in popularity and you, so it was a few quote, you expect a few questions and it's good just to, now I have conception actually what's going on here. So you might see a question like this. What does the name of the built in XML parsing object library and you might get a question of, Oh, one of its library functions as well.

The answer is simple XML and I just put in the link there so you can look that up if you want to dig in a little deeper. The last category we're going to look at that usually covers the probably a good portion of the test is security because it's, I'm very important of course, to protect your, your code and your environment, you always need to filter, import in escape output. So you really need to know what that means and have a good handle of how to, okay. You use those things, those concepts. You would see probably some questions on cross site across forward forgeries protecting things with hashing. By that I mean using the encryption algorithms, I guess H a one or MD five and so on. The concept of salting passwords is good to know and how to protect against sequel injection attacks and so on.

If you know about the famous cartoon of Bobby tables that's an example of where those kinds of sequel injection just go wrong and it's hilarious. So look at that. [inaudible] I use it often. They didn't pop you though, slide in here because I figured most people wouldn't know what that is. But use that as an example. That's security. When it fails. Okay. Oh one of them is to protect removing tags. So here's one. We're using the function strip tags. They might see something like this as you'd be asked, what is this going to put out?

Well, since we're stripping tags, wow, what do you expect the HTML tags to be ripped out of this? But we're also using the [inaudible] echo statement. So this is what we should see going out. Everything inside the strip tag functions function is being stripped of its HTML. So really all we're saying is the starting text and the ending text, which is the only two real raw it's a text in there when summer rain. I know that was a quick overview. And the nuances and ins and outs of all these categories are for you. It really is based on experience. So study, practice your, your areas that were your maybe weekend, maybe I don't know a whole lot about arrays. So spend a whole lot of time, maybe a week or two, just playing, set up a little test environment, write some sample code for the law around try stuff.

I use a wind amp on my laptop. I just throw code as well. What was this going to do? Well, is that really how it works? Oh yeah, there you go. Yeah, you can see how it work that way. Of course there's a, the online resources, a PHB net of course. Where on the language a code and examples are there. No, my PHP is lots of good videos. Mmm [inaudible]. For training and PHP and, and other side things like that. If you don't know much about the database part of it or you want us brush up on my sequel you can certainly go to a nomad page. G and BHV art cook.com has a book of sample questions and how to prepare for an exam, but it's old. It's PHP five based. But you can still get a lot of good value out of bed. If you're so declined.

Okay. We will be doing this in a lot more detail and output. In April this coming April at the Midwest BHP conference, I'll be running a half day workshop on test prepper ration and going over those major categories with a lot more sample. We'll code and we'll walk through and talk true in a workshop, interactive way of why this a certain code will act this way or what's going on here in this code example or practice test type questions and more in depth if you're able to make it to the Midwest conference. Happy to have you in my workshop and then at the end of the workshop you can actually take the pest and see how, you know. So with that, I certainly thank you for your interest and good luck. Can BHP and see if there are any questions.

All right, Peter, thank you for a tremendous presentation here. In terms of resources, you mentioned there's the PHP art book. I think there's a couple of other books. The other thing too is that if you're preparing for the, these zenned, are there any resources that zenned offers that you could utilize?

Yes. And has some courses in taking, preparing for the exam. I think they have a, there's a fact thereabout. Yeah. What to expect for your examines in, but it's specific to the Zen one so you can look that up. And is it zen.com/certification I think, or at least you'll see it on the menu system. Yeah. And did they used to have a bank of sample questions, but I didn't see them there as I was preparing for this one nurse. So I'm not sure if they still exist or not.

Okay. the second question I have is how disappointed were you when clowns didn't come out after you passed the exam?

It was crest fallen. I thought this, I studied for a month or more after having written used PHP for I think four or five years. I was kind of apprehensive to take the exam because, you know, you never know what if you fail, et sector. So I went in and I, Oh, like I said, when Wayne introduction, noise, et cetera, submit the [inaudible] the test for you know validation, see if you passed or not. And my hand was shaking over the submit button on the mouse and close my eyes and click the button and okay. Nothing happened. So I opened my eyes and there it was. Congratulations. You passed. Okay. Can I just kind of looked around? Is that it? So when you put in so much time and effort and you, you think there should be at least a little [inaudible] something on the screen or you know, a little animation or something. Right.

Well, for what's worth your reaction was better than mine. I might click the button and it still, I passed. I assume there had to be some mistake.

Well,

Which I guess would be,

I have failed. I, I didn't take my, I'll be honest, I took my 5.3 test tool wise, I didn't fail, I didn't pass the first one. So I went away and studied harder and it, that particular test gave a little summary of the areas where I w categories where it was weak. So that helped a little bit to you know, spend more time in those areas where it said I was weak.

Awesome. That's a, that's a really good point. And that if you do fail, you can be the exam again. I believe with Zen, do they give you a free retake still or did they, have they changed that? Do you know

At that time I don't think there was. [inaudible]. And do you have to wait a month? I think between tech. Okay.

They might have free

Retakes there. I'm not sure.

Okay. So the nice thing too is if, if you're interested in certification and you're not sure where you, you, what areas you're really strong and what areas you're a weekend or what areas you can improve out or rephrase it here. The nicer the nomad exam is if you go on to nomad PHP, you can take the exam there. Once you take the exam, it'll also give you a summary and say, you know, you pass this area but you, you didn't pass this area. I was actually telling you what areas to, to focus on. And you know, the, the question earlier was, which certification is better? Which one should you pursue? No, I think the answer I would say is, you know, if you can do them both, but they know my PHP exam, obviously that's included with your subscription. You can take that one. If you fail, you're allowed to take it again as many times as you need to to pass it. I'd recommend doing that one first and then once you pass that you know, that should give you a good step of confidence as you look towards like a sensor. Fication digging more into that. Although, although Peter, I'll defer to you on your expertise on that.

Yeah. The only reason I was kind of questioning his end is, is, and it's, it's value is [inaudible]. Yeah. I mean, any certification has tremendous value. Don't get me wrong. It's just that

The confidence in zen.com, the company being changed hands a few times and then the way

Rogue wave

Handled

Zen versus now, I don't know what Perforce is going to do with them.

Mmm.

Right. Maybe they're going to

Mmm.

You know, give it, it's, it's FAC, I'm not sure. It's just kinda the, the competence level of the company in general, kind of a fail faltered. So does that

Exactly. Less valuable. I don't know. It brings up those kinds of questions. That's a, that's a valid point. And, and I think we all hope that Perforce is going to do great things was then I've had a quick chance to talk with them a couple times and so far I've been impressed, but that's a very, very valid point. Another quick question for you. Is there a online program where you can practice for the exam?

Not that I'm aware of. There used to be on Zen and like I said, they used to have a test, a sample test bank where you could print it off or try it out. I think it had like

Five, 10 questions. It wasn't that great of a, of a sample or 20 maybe questions. And that was, it's three or four years ago. Now I'm getting, I'm not sure whether it would be any okay. Google around and see if there's anything out there. Nothing that I'm aware of. Okay. So, so again, that case, I think one of the benefits of, of the nomad PHB exam is you're not going to be penalized if you fail. So I mean, the downside is that it is 105 questions and it's, you know, it's a lengthy exam. The plus side is that you get, if you want to go through and get that first practice, see, you know, where the questions, what areas, you know, you know, do I need to dig in a little bit more, et cetera. You can do that. In one caveat, I'll tell you both the, and the nomad PHP exam is, the questions are random. So you may not see the same question twice if that's your plan, but at least you can understand what areas you know to, to focus on and kind of what the questions are structured like and how they would be like. A, another quick question for you and this question I think is more best practices than it is on the exam, but with some 0.3 just to clarify, you can only in debt the here doc if it's part of the class, is that correct?

Correct. You still have to do the other syntax outside of the, if you're doing it in straight a PHP code.

Okay. In your opinion and working with this, does it make sensors a good practice to have it indented within the class or is it still a better practice to leave it not indented to prevent possible errors or our mistakes in the future with the mutation?

I think it's a matter pro friends. It makes the class more readable if you indented with the, with the rest of your code. That was one thing I, I never really liked. I don't use here, docs in there and now docs that often. But that was something I always didn't like about it. Syntax is if you're, if you have it within a function or within just regular code that's already indented, you have to out dent your, your conclusion of your hair doc. So for Rita readability, it's all askew potentially. But so again, it's a matter of preference really.