Re: Code elegance and cleanliness

Not really knowing why you need to provide indexes for the array, since they are generated automatically if none are provided, I'd use: $imgBkgrnd = array( 'bkgrnd-default.gif', 'bkgrnd-positive.gif', 'bkgrnd-negative.gif' ); $imgNeeded = table['field']; $imgName = $imgBkgrnd[$imgNeeded]; The last two lines are a it doesn't matter. Note the use of single quotes in the array. The parser can simply treat the values as text rather than having to check for variables, etc. Robb Kerr wrote:

Just a quick question. Does it really matter how long your code is or how many variables you use? For instance you can enter the following... $imgBkgrnd = array("1"=> "bkgrnd-default.gif", "2" => "bkgrnd-positive.gif", "3" => "bkgrnd-negative.gif"); $imgNeeded = table['field']; $imgName = $imgBkgrnd[$imgNeeded]; or, you can code the same thing as... $imgBkgrnd = array("1"=> "bkgrnd-default.gif", "2" => "bkgrnd-positive.gif", "3" => "bkgrnd-negative.gif"); $imgName = $imgBkgrnd[$table['field']]; The first example uses one more variable and a longer code block but is easier to read and debug. The second example uses one less variable and a shorter code block but is harder to debug later. Should I be striving for the shortest most compact code utilizing the fewest possible variables. Or, can I code in a style which is easier to read and debug?