My Hands Aren’t Short! PHP shorthand operators are amazing! There, I said it. The shorthand operator combines the expression on the right with the assignment operator. The variable that appears on the left-side of the assignment operator needs to appear on the right-hand-side as well in order for you to be able to use the shorthand notation. Let’s take a look at the following code: <?php $x = 1; $x = $x + 1; echo $x; ?> PHP assigns the integer value 1 to the variable $x. In the second statement, $x + 1 is evaluated. $x contains