PHP | Ternary Operator

02 Sep, 2021
If-else and Switch cases are used to evaluate conditions and decide the flow of a program. The ternary operator is a shortcut operator used for shortening the conditional statements.
ternary operator: The ternary operator (?:) is a conditional operator used to perform a simple comparison or check on a condition having simple statements. It decreases the length of the code performing conditional operations. The order of operation of this operator is from left to right. It is called a ternary operator because it takes three operands- a condition, a result statement for true, and a result statement for false. The syntax for the ternary operator is as follows. 
Syntax:
(Condition) ? (Statement1) : (Statement2);
Condition: It is the expression to be evaluated and returns a boolean value.
Statement 1: It is the statement to be executed if the condition results in a true state.
Statement 2: It is the statement to be executed if the condition results in a false state.
The result of this comparison can also be assigned to a variable using the assignment operator. The syntax is as follows:  
Variable = (Condition) ? (Statement1) : (Statement2);
If the statement executed depending on the condition returns any value, it will be assigned to the variable.
Advantages of Ternary Operator: Following are some advantages of ternary operator:
The use of the ternary operator will make the code shorter in comparison to the IF ELSE statement.
The code can be quick in length in comparison to the IF ELSE statement.
The readability of the code will increase with the usage of conditional statements.
The use of the ternary operator makes the code simpler.
Example 1: In this example, if the value of $a is greater than 15, then 20 will be returned and will be assigned to $b, else 5 will be returned and assigned to $b.
php
<?php  $a = 10;  $b = $a > 15 ? 20 : 5;  print ("Value of b is " . $b);?>
Output: 
Value of b is 5
Example 2: In this example, if the value of $age is more than or equal to 18, “Adult” is passed to print function and printed, else “Not Adult” is passed and printed.
php
<?php  $age = 20;  print ($age >= 18) ? "Adult" : "Not Adult";?>
Output: 
Adult
When we use ternary operator: We use the ternary operator when we need to simplify the if-else statements that are simply assigning values to variables depending on a condition. An advantage of using a ternary operator is that it reduces the huge if-else block to a single line, improving the code readability and simplify it. Very useful while assigning variables after form submission. 
Example: 
Original Code: 
php
<?phpif(isset($_POST['Name']))    $name = $_POST['Name'];else    $name = null; if(isset($_POST['Age']))    $age = $_POST['Age'];else    $age = null;?>
Reduced to the following: Thus, the ternary operator successfully reduces the if-else block to a single line, hence serving its purpose. 
php
<?php$name = isset($_POST['Name'])?$_POST['Name']:null;$age = isset($_POST['Age'])?$_POST['Age']:null;?>
PHP is a server-side scripting language designed specifically for web development. You can learn PHP from the ground up by following this PHP Tutorial and PHP Examples.
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