Do While (Novice Question)

[system]

I have this code right here that simulates a coin flip and finds out how many times one can flip head before a tail comes up. I don’t full understand this code and have a few questions.

1. I know that rand picks either 0 or 1 but how does it get added with the ++ since adding 0 would result in the same number?

2. It says if($flip) echo H or T respectively. How does that code exactly work? How does the computer know 0 is head and 1 is tail?

   $flipCount = 0;
   do {
   $flip = rand(0,1);
   $flipCount ++;
   if ($flip){
   echo “H”;
   }
   else {
   echo “T”;
   }
   } while ($flip);
   $verb = “were”;
   $last = “flips”;
   if ($flipCount == 1) {
   $verb = “was”;
   $last = “flip”;
   }
   echo “

   There {$verb} {$flipCount} {$last}!

   ”;

Thanks a lot for your help!

[richei]

If i’m reading that code correctly, $flip will always be heads (H) because the condition will always be true since its always a 0 or a 1. For it to work as it should, the condition needs to change to something like

if($flip == 1){
echo “H”;
} else {
echo “T”;
}

[AbraCadaver]

1. $flip and $flipCount are different. $flip is the result of the flip 0 or 1. $flipCount is how many time you have flipped the coin. ++ just means increment the variable by 1.

2. if $flip evaluates to true then echo H (any non 0 number is true) otherwise echo T because $flip is 0 which is false.