Here are 10 PHP mistakes that any programmer, regardless of skill level, might make at any given time. Some of the mistakes are very basic, but trip up even the best PHP programmer. Other mistakes are hard to spot (even with strict error reporting). But all of these mistakes have one thing in common: They're easy to avoid.

Here's the list (as Glen Stanberry sees it):

• Single quotes, double quotes
• Semicolon after a While
• NOT Using database caching
• Missing Semicolon After a Break or a Continue
• Not Using E_ALL Reporting
• Not Setting Time Limits On PHP Scripts
• Not Protecting Session ID's
• Not Validating Cookie Data
• Not Escaping Entities
• Using Wrong Comparison Operators

Here's his list:

• Semicolon after a while - a small problem with big (infinitely looping) consequences)
• empty() and magic __get method - __get will hit first, then empty
• Missing semicolon after break or continue - a classic that can make switches and evaluations difficult to debug

Comments on the post include a few others: working with variables by reference, comparisons with == versus === and strpos finding the first character in a string.

Those are 4 typical errors I introduced in my code, and spend some time debugging it, because I found them really hard to spot. Luckily, once I spotted the actual bug, I find it a lot easier the next time the typo occurs. Therefore I want to share those, so that I may save you some minutes of your life hunting stupid bugs.

His three contributions concern a "missing if", the addition of a random semicolon, operator precedence and a for loop that refuses to work. Others have contributed to the comments on the post as well.