what's the best way to join values as strings in php? For instanc:

<?php
$name1 = 1111111111;
$name2 ="gordon"
$test1 = substr($name1, 0, 4);
$test2 = substr($name2, 0, 4);
$test3 = $test1.$test2;
echo $test3;

?>

this doesn't seem to work. The output I desire is

1111gord

what is the correct synta.?

Once you add the missing semicolon, it should work as you expect.