What does PHP keyword 'var' do?

Question

This is probably a very trivial question, but I haven't been able to find the answer neither through web search engines, nor on php.net. Please just direct me to where I can read about this, if you haven't got time to explain.

1. What does the 'var' keyword mean in PHP?
2. Are there any differences between PHP4 and PHP5?

Answer 1

It's for declaring class member variables in PHP4, and is no longer needed. It will work in PHP5, but will raise an E_STRICT warning in PHP from version 5.0.0 up to version 5.1.2, as of when it was deprecated. Since PHP 5.3, var has been un-deprecated and is a synonym for 'public'.

Example usage:

class foo {
    var $x = 'y'; // or you can use public like...
    public $x = 'y'; //this is also a class member variables.
    function bar() {
    }
}