NYCPHP Meetup

[Michael Sims]

On Friday 30 September 2005 12:36, Aaron Fischer wrote:

> The symbols in question are ? and :

?: is the "ternary operator".  Google for that and you should get plenty of 
information.

http://ca.php.net/manual/en/language.operators.comparison.php#language.operators.comparison.ternary

A ? B : C

can be roughly translated as "test A, and pick B or C depending on how A's 
test came out".

> 1)  $argv = isset($_SERVER['argv']) ? $_SERVER['argv'] : NULL;

So this is saying if the _SERVER variable argv is set, then set the local 
variable argv with that value; otherwise set it to NULL.  The more direct 
approach:

$argv = $_SERVER['argv'];

will throw an error if $_SERVER['argv'] doesn't exist.  (Actually, it will 
throw a notice, not an error, and the script will continue to execute, and 
the functional effect will be very similar, but using the ternary operator 
is certainly more elegant.)


Michael Sims