Re: Looking for caveats to the following code

Chris W. Parker wrote: > Hello, .... > > <?php > > if($result = do_something('hello')) > { > // do something with $result > } > else > { > // do some other stuff > } > > ?> > nothing wrong with this. like Adam mentioned you can check the expression to see if it is exactly false - and if you don't need $result you can also do it like so: if (do_something('hello') !== false) { } or // some consider this safer because accidentally assigning // to a literal will cause an error - so you know right away when you made a type if (false !== do_something('hello')) { } to make the 'safety' issue clearer consider these snippets: if (false == $res) echo "boo!"; if (false = $res) echo "boo!"; // typo with fatal! if ($res == false) echo "boo!"; if ($res = false) echo "boo!"; // typo with no error but your logic is silently borked! > The issue is whether or not this is a safe test. My initial thought is > that it is safe since I'm simply checking for true/false-ness. I either > check for '!== false' explicitly or (in the case of the latter example) > check that something other than 'false' is returned. > > It's slightly less readable but it seems more efficient (if nothing more > than to save on the number of lines typed). readable is probably a question of preference and what your acustomed to; in situations where you don't need $result you can save on creating a variable by testing directly on the return result of the given function. > > Thoughts? > > > Chris. >