Re: Re: Why PHP sucks - farce or is there a bit of truth?

If you wrote a nested ternary like that I'd fire your ass. As one of the main programming philosophers said, the art of programming is making your intentions clear to the next programmer. ----------------------------------- TQ White II 708-763-0100 >> On Oct 18, 2013, at 2:02 PM, Jim Giner <jim.giner@albanyhandball.com> wrote: >> >> On 10/18/2013 10:33 AM, Robert Cummings wrote: >> Hi Jim, >> >> I'm not sure it's a bug. There are two considerations... should the >> first use of the ternary operator feed the first operand of the second, >> or should the second use of the ternary operator feed the 3rd operand of >> the first use. Visually... which is more correct: >> <?php >> >> $foo = ($a ? $b : $c) ? $d : $e; // PHP does this one. >> >> $foo = $a ? $b : ($c ? $d : $e); >> >> ?> >> >> They both seem perfectly reasonable and so I would say it's my job to >> clarify if I don't want to leave it the the vagaries of the developer's >> subjective opinion :) To me this isn't a flaw in PHP, but an oversight >> by the programmer (because they don't see the ambiguity) or they have an >> incorrect assumption that one way is the right way. Either way... do you >> think the following makes for readable code? >> <?php >> >> $foo = $a ? $b : $c ? $d : $e; >> >> ?> >> >> Cheers, >> Rob. > When I write something like this, I expect it to happen from left to right.. Always have, > always will. That said I see the 'proper' expectation of this statement: > > $foo = $a ? $b : $c ? $d : $e; > > as: > > $foo will be the result of "if $a then $b else if $c then $d else $e;" > > Why php interprets it differently is just not logical to me. Of course writing something like > that with one set of parens solves the riddle as well as making it more readable: > > $foo = $a ? $b : ($c ? $d : $e); > > As for ambiguity - I don't see it. Again the literal syntax of the ternary if is (IMHO): > "if (cond) then (statement) else (other statment)" > > In your example: > $foo = $a ? $b : $c ? $d : $e; > I see it exactly as this: > "if $a is true then > $b > else > if $c is true then > $d > else > $e;" > > Why should php evaluate the last statement before deciding if it even needs that statement? > > > > -- > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php >