Ordinal Number

Here is a PHP function to get the ordinal number. Pass it a number, and it will return a textual number suffixed with either of "st" (like 1st), "nd" (like 2nd), "rd" (like 3rd), "th" (like 4th) etc.

Grep - before and after

The grep is a command line utility for searching plain-text data sets for lines matching the given regular expression. And those using Linux (or some or other flavor of this OS), must have used this command. Here are two useful options of this command: -A for After and -B for Before. Both take a number as their value.

As their names suggest, -A gives you matching line and N lines after the matching line, similarly, -B gives you matching line and N lines before the matching line.

You can also combine both these options into single command. And, if your -A and -B values are same, then you can simply use -C option. C stands for Count.

PHP Blunder-2

Here is another 'oops!' moment for PHP. Do you remember the rule of transitivity? A related to B, and A related to C, implies that B is related to C. Right? Now apply this very understanding to the code below.

Now, foo equals true, and foo equals zero. So, according to this rule of transitivity, true equals zero?!