What are the PHP operators “?” and “:” called and what do they do?

Question

What are the ? and : operators in PHP?

For example:

(($request_type == \'SSL\') ? HTTPS_SERVER : HTTP_SERVER)

Answer 1

It's called a ternary operator. If the first expression evaluates to true, HTTPS_SERVER is used, else HTTP_SERVER is chosen.

It's basically a shorthand if statement, and the above code could also be rewritten as follows:

if ($request_type == 'SSL') {
   HTTPS_SERVER;
}
else {
   HTTP_SERVER;
}