Have you ever seen code using a similar syntax to the following and wondered what it does?

<?php

$id = (isset($_GET['id'])) ? $_GET['id'] : 1;
$name = (isset($_GET['name'])) ? $_GET['name'] : 'Anonymous';
$email = (isset($_GET['email'])) ? $_GET['email'] : 0;

I am referring to the question marks and colons. This syntax is known as the ternary operator. The ternary operator is a shortcut comparison operator that replaces an if-else statement in a PHP script. If you use a lot of if-else statements in your scripts, using the ternary operator can shorten your code hugely. The ternary operator is very simple to use, but it does tend to confuse new PHP programmers.

Basically, the previous code sample is a short way of writing:

<?php

if (isset($_GET['id'])) {
    $id = $_GET['id'];
} else {
    $id = 1;
}

if (isset($_GET['name'])) {
    $name = $_GET['name'];
} else {
    $name = 'anonymous';
}

if (isset($_GET['email'])) {
    $email = $_GET['email'];
} else {
    $email = 0;
}

As you can see, it is significantly shorter (and often far easier to read). Let’s break it down a bit:

<?php

$varname = (statement) ? truecode : falsecode;

Fairly obvious?

• statement - the statement to test. For example, could test a variable to see whether it matches some regex.
• truecode - the code to execute if the statement returns true.
• falsecode - the code to execute if the statement returns false

What can this be used for?

It is very good for displaying different text to different people, for example:

<?php

echo ($country === 'UK') ? 'Welcome!' : 'This website is UK only, sorry';

Optional adaptation

In PHP 5.3, the optional adaptation was introduced:

<?php

$notset = $_GET['var'] ?: 'Variable not set';

If $_GET['var'] is set, $notset will be set to that. If it isn't, it will be set to "Variable not set". This is the equivilant of:

<?php

if ($_GET['var']) {
    $notset = $_GET['var'];
} else {
    $notset = 'Variable not set';
}

A couple examples

<div class="content" id="<?php echo (is_home()) ? 'wrapper' : ''; ?>">

<?php

$vartrue = 'Thanks for reading.';
$varfalse = 'Read it again, or ask in a comment.';

$message = ($understood) ? $vartrue : $varfalse;

echo $message;

Thanks for reading.