How do I use the ternary operator ( ? : ) in PHP as a shorthand for “if / else”?

Question

Based on the examples from this page, I have the working and non-working code samples below.

Working code using if statement:

if (!empty         


        

Answer 1

The

(condition) ? /* value to return if condition is true */ 
            : /* value to return if condition is false */ ;

syntax is not a "shorthand if" operator (the ? is called the conditional operator) because you cannot execute code in the same manner as if you did:

if (condition) {
    /* condition is true, do something like echo */
}
else {
    /* condition is false, do something else */
}

In your example, you are executing the echo statement when the $address is not empty. You can't do this the same way with the conditional operator. What you can do however, is echo the result of the conditional operator:

echo empty($address['street2']) ? "Street2 is empty!" : $address['street2'];

and this will display "Street is empty!" if it is empty, otherwise it will display the street2 address.

Answer 2

PHP 7+

As of PHP 7, this task can be performed simply by using the Null coalescing operator like this :

echo !empty($address['street2']) ?? 'Empty';