PHP Zone - Comments for "Tips & Tricks of Learning Ternary Operators"

Good, article.

mohayus — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:22:22 -0400

Good, article.

Good article, I do agree

sharmo — Fri, 02 May 2008 23:02:37 -0400

Good article, I do agree with Stoyan however on using the ternary for more complex scenarios. I imagine though that David was purely showing what you can do...not really recommending a best practice approach as such.

Ternary's can be fantastic, good to know what you can and can't do but readability and maintability is king.

Dear PHP newcomer reading

dolorian — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 10:58:59 -0400

Dear PHP newcomer reading this post. Please read it carefully and try to understand the logic behind the ternary operator. After this brain-excercise, just use your if()'s and almost forget about the ternary. With unnecessary use of ternary operators you just DON'T "keep your code organized for later maintenance", you keep your code more difficult for others (and later for you) to read:

Compare:

$age_code = ($age > 10 ? ($age > 20 ? ($age > 30 ? 'senior' : 'adult') : 'teen') : 'youngster');

and

If ($age <= 10) $age_code = 'youngster';
else
if ($age <= 20) $age_code = 'teen';
else
if ($age <= 30) $age_code = 'senior';
else
if ($age > 30)  $age_code = 'adult';

Which one is easier to understand at first reading ? To which is easier to add more conditions ?
The good programming is not the tricky programming.

If you have one short and simple condition, you could use ternary operator:

$decision = ($condition > 50) ? 'action1' : 'action2';

But in this situation I wouldn't recommend its use:

$decision = ($condition = $this->getAnotherCond($foo) && $condition > 50) ? 'justVeryLongActionToTake' : 'justMoreLongerActionToTake';

The code is long and hard to read. Just rewrite it:

$condition = $this->getAnotherCond($foo);
if ($condition > 50) {
$decision = 'justVeryLongActionToTake';
} else {
$decision = 'justMoreLongerActionToTake';
}

Keep your code easy to read even at the expense of some extra chars typed. It's good to know a language features, but do not overuse them.

:P

kenman — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:31:17 -0400

My paste borked...hence I

FuzzyOne — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 22:08:42 -0400

My paste borked...hence I gave up

Another great use for

FuzzyOne — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:54:46 -0400

Another great use for ternary op's is in templating engines where the dev and designer can work more easily...

<?php foreach($items as $item) : ?>

<div>
	<p><?php echo $item; ?></p>
</div

<?php endforeach; ?>

PHP Zone - Comments for "Tips &amp; Tricks of Learning Ternary Operators"

Good, article.

Good article, I do agree

Dear PHP newcomer reading

:P

My paste borked...hence I

Another great use for

PHP Zone - Comments for "Tips & Tricks of Learning Ternary Operators"