What is the purpose of using the "static" keyword in PHP functions?

Using the "static" keyword in PHP functions allows variables within the function to retain their values between function calls. This can be useful when you want to store and update information across multiple function calls without using global variables or database storage. 

function incrementCounter() {
    static $counter = 0;
    $counter++;
    echo "Counter: " . $counter . "<br>";
}

incrementCounter();
incrementCounter();
incrementCounter();
```

Output:
```
Counter: 1
Counter: 2
Counter: 3

Keywords

static keyword PHP functions variable scope memory allocation

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