CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpif-statementconditional-statements
CyberJunkie
CyberJunkie

Reputation: 22674

Where do conditional statements without brackets end?

Suppose I have a conditional statement without brackets in a function:

function get_user_id() 
{
    if ($something) $this->some_function($str);
    return array('user_id' => $user_id);
}

I think bracketless statements are bad practice... I want to add brackets to the if-statement but where does the statement end? Does is it end at the first semicolon or the end of the function?

Which is correct:

function get_user_id() 
{
    if ($something)
    {
       $this->some_function($str);
    }
    return array('user_id' => $user_id);
}

or..

function get_user_id() 
{
   if ($something)
   {
      $this->some_function($str);
      return array('user_id' => $user_id);
   }           
}

Upvotes: 1

Views: 85

Answers (3)

Moyed Ansari
Moyed Ansari

Reputation: 8461

First one is correct. One of the reason is that second wont return any array if the condition is false, which is not a good practice.

 if ($something)
    {
       $this->some_function($str);
    }
 return array('user_id' => $user_id);

for that you need extra code to make it fault tolerant.

Upvotes: 1

Jonathan M
Jonathan M

Reputation: 17451

Definitely the first version is correct. Take a look at the examples in the documentation: http://php.net/manual/en/control-structures.if.php

Upvotes: 1

nickb
nickb

Reputation: 59699

The first version is correct, as without braces, only one statement after the if statement applies to the conditions of the if statement.

So this:

if ($something) $this->some_function($str);

Is equivalent to:

if ($something) {
    $this->some_function($str);
}

I do agree that the manual is a bit vague about this, but its example is about a single statement, and mentions that in order to incorporate additional lines to the same conditional, you would need a "statement group", denoted by curly braces:

Often you'd want to have more than one statement to be executed conditionally. Instead, you can group several statements into a statement group.

Upvotes: 4

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