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Using PHP’s alternate syntaxes

If you’ve ever worked with PHP you’ll be more than familiar with the use of if/elseif/else conditional statements, these statements often become large and unweildy, especially when HTML is mixed in with PHP, causing a problems with code readability. There are a couple of alternate ways to write these statements which can improve your code.

if..endif syntax

We’ll start with a simple example of a ‘regular’ statement which includes a foreach and an if statement which is extremely common among PHP scripts.

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<?
foreach ($array_expression as $value) {
    if ($expression1) {
        echo 'Result1';
    } else {
        echo 'Result2';
    }
}
?>

Now, just for funzies, let’s make this a tiny bit more complex and mix in some HTML markup in there for good measure, just like you’d see in, say, a WordPress template where we’re jumping back and forth between HTML and PHP mode.

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<?
foreach ($array_expression as $value) {
    if ($expression1) {
?>
        <p>Result1</p>
<?  } else { ?>
        <p>Result2</p>
<?
    }
}
?>

See the closing braces on lines 9 & 10? With a relatively small example like this you can scan back through the code to see wether they close the if or the elseif. Now imagine a much larger statement, the only way to find out what the closing brace actually closes is to either pay attention to the tab levels (providing the tab levels have been maintained properly), or to read back through the whole statement and match them up. There is an alternate syntax which makes life a little easier.

Alternate syntax

By using the alternate if..elseif syntax we can replace those closing braces with something a little more useful.

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<?
foreach ($array_expression as $value) :
    if ($expression1) :
?>
        <p>Result1</p>
<?  else : ?>
        <p>Result2</p>
<?
    endif;
endforeach;
?>

This alternate syntax is expecially useful when mixing PHP and HTML and works for if/while/for control structures.

Ternary operator

For simple evaluations you can use the ternary operator which is a slimline version of an if/else statement, for example, the following statement which pluralises a string based on an integer variable.

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<?
if ($count == 1) {
    $comments = 'comment';
} else {
    $comments = 'comments';
}
echo $count . ' ' . $comments;
?>

Alternate syntax

Using the ternary operator this can be condensed to a single line:

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<?
$comments = ($count == 1) ? 'comment' : 'comments';
echo $count . ' ' . $comments;
?>

Have a try!

By learning and adopting these alternate syntaxes you will ensure that your code remains readable and maintainable, especially if you’re writing code to be used by other people. Give them a try!

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This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 09:00 and is filed under Development, PHP, Tips and tricks, p52. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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3 Responses to “Using PHP’s alternate syntaxes”

  1. Andrew Pryde says:
    25/01/2010 at 11:35

    Many argue that omitting brackets and using the ternary operator reduces readability. I agree with you when you have embedded blocks of HTML but I think the ternary operator reduces readability.

    My ten cents anyway,

    @Prydie

  2. Dan Brown says:
    25/01/2010 at 23:36

    I prefer to do this -

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    $comments = ‘comments’;
    if ($count = 1) {
    $comments = ‘comment’;
    }
    echo $count . ‘ ‘ . $comments;

    - than use the ternary operator. It also means the variable is always set to a known value (preferably the safest of he options) rather than undefined if the setting code doesn’t get run due to some logic error.

  3. Stanton says:
    26/01/2010 at 08:25

    @Andrew Pryde

    Perhaps you’re right about the ternary operator reducing readability, although I feel that for small evaluations which may be inline with PHP, It’s great :)

    @Dan Brown

    Thanks for taking the time to reply :) I deliberately kept the example code simple but you’re right, there should be a step in there which protects against an undefined variable throwing a warning. One thing I love (and hate, sometimes) is that there’s a thousand ways you can do things in PHP, I’d probably do this:

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    $comments = (isset($count) && $count == 1) ? 'comment' : 'comments';

    Of course this then poses the question of “If $count isn’t set, you wouldn’t want to echo ‘comments’ at all, and we start making the example too verbose to explain the initial meaning… but I know what you mean :)

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