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The wonderful if Statements

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The wonderful if Statements

Let’s start to make our code smarter! Modify your pets.json file and remove the age key from just one of the pets. When we refresh, it doesn’t fail nicely, it gives us a big ugly warning:

Undefined index: age in /path/to/index.php on line 95

Let’s dump the $cutePet variable inside the loop to see what’s going on:

<?php foreach ($pets as $cutePet) { ?>
    <?php var_dump($cutePet); ?>
    ...
<?php } ?>

Each pet is an associative array, but as you probably suspected, Pico de Gato is missing her age key. When you reference a key on an array that doesn’t exist, PHP will complain. Instead, let’s code defensively. In other words, if we know that it’s possible that the age key might be missing, we should check for it and only print the age if it’s there.

To do this, we’ll finally meet the wonderful and super-common if statement. Like foreach, it’s a “language construct”, and is one of those things that uses curly braces to surround a block of code:

<blockquote class="pet-details">
    <span class="label label-info"><?php echo $cutePet['breed']; ?></span>
    <?php
    if (true) {
        echo $cutePet['age'];
    }
    ?>
    <?php echo $cutePet['weight']; ?> lbs
</blockquote>

Where foreach accepts an array and executes the code between its curly braces one time for each item, if accepts a Boolean value - in other words true or false. If what you pass it is true, it executes the code between its curly braces.

In this case, I’m literally passing it the boolean true. The echo will always be called, since true will be true now, tomorrow and forever. What we really need is a function that can tell us if the age key exists on the $cutePet array.

That function is called array_key_exists. Let’s look at its docs to make sure we know how it works. The first argument is the key, the second is the array, and it returns a Boolean. Perfect!

<blockquote class="pet-details">
    <span class="label label-info"><?php echo $cutePet['breed']; ?></span>
    <?php
    if (array_key_exists('age', $cutePet)) {
        echo $cutePet['age'];
    }
    ?>
    <?php echo $cutePet['weight']; ?> lbs
</blockquote>

Great! 3 pets have an age and one doesn’t. This all happens with no warnings. array_key_exists returns true for 3 pets and false for our friend Pico de Gato.

If-else

But instead of rendering nothing if there is no age, let’s print “Unknown”. We can do this by adding an optional else part to our if:

if (array_key_exists('age', $cutePet)) {
    echo $cutePet['age'];
} else {
    echo 'Unknown';
}

When we refresh, it works! You’ll use if statements all the time, both with and without the optional else part.

Combining If Conditions

Let’s complicate things again by removing the age of another pet. But this time, don’t remove the whole key, just set the age to an empty string.

{
    "name": "Chew Barka",
    "breed": "Bichon",
    "age": "",
    "weight": 8,
    "bio": "The park, The pool or the Playground - I love to go anywhere! I am really great at... SQUIRREL!",
    "image": "pet1.png"
}

When we refresh, we’re still free of errors. But the age for Chew Barka is missing. Since it’s blank, I would rather it say “Unknown”.

If we dump the $pets array and refresh, we can see that this makes sense:

<?php var_dump($cutePet);die; ?>
<?php foreach ($pets as $cutePet) { ?>
    ...
<?php } ?>

Chew Barka has an age key, so array_key_exists returns true, and the age - which is a blank string - is printed out. What we really want is for the code in the if statement to only run if the age key exists and isn’t blank.

Let’s do this first by adding a new if statement inside our existing one. We’ll check the age and only print it if it’s not empty:

if (array_key_exists('age', $cutePet)) {
    if ($cutePet['age'] != '') {
        echo $cutePet['age'];
    }
} else {
    echo 'Unknown';
}

The != is what you use when you want to compare 2 values to see if they are not the same. If the age is not empty, then this expression returns true and the echo runs.

Make sure also to add an else statement so that “Unknown” is printed if the age is empty:

if (array_key_exists('age', $cutePet)) {
    if ($cutePet['age'] != '') {
        echo $cutePet['age'];
    } else {
        echo 'Unknown';
    }
} else {
    echo 'Unknown';
}

This is all getting a little messy, but let’s try it! When we refresh, 2 pets have ages, 2 say “Unknown”, and we have exactly zero warnings. Nice!

The mess is that we have a lot of code for such a small problem. We also have the word “Unknown” written in 2 places. Code duplication is always a bummer because when you need to change this word later, you may forget about the duplication and only change it in one spot. Code duplication creates bugs!

Let’s simplify. Really, we want to print the age if the age key exists and is not an empty string. We can just put both of these conditions in one if statement:

if (array_key_exists('age', $cutePet) && $cutePet['age'] != '') {
    echo $cutePet['age'];
} else {
    echo 'Unknown';
}

The secret is the double “and” sign, or ampersand if we are being formal. An if statement can have as many parts, or expressions in it as you want. This if statement has two expressions, the array_key_exists part and the part that checks to see if the age is empty. Each returns true or false on its own. By using && between each expression, it means that every part must be true in order for the if statement to run. In other words, this is perfect.

Refreshing this time shows that things work just like before. But now our code is shorter, easier to read, and has no pesky duplication.

If-else-if

By now, you probably know that as soon as we get things working, I’ll challenge us by adding something harder! Imagine that sometimes the dog owner knows the age of her dog, but purposefully wants to hide it. Let’s change the age of Spark Pug to “hidden”.

{
    "name": "Spark Pug",
    "breed": "Pug",
    "age": "hidden",
    "weight": 11,
    "bio": "You want to go to the dog park in style? Then I am your pug!",
    "image": "pet2.png"
}

When we see this, let’s print a friendly message to contact the owner for the age.

We already have all the tools to make this happen, using another nested if statement:

if (array_key_exists('age', $cutePet) && $pet['age'] != '') {
    if ($cutePet['age'] == 'hidden') {
        echo '(contact owner for age)';
    } else {
        echo $cutePet['age'];
    }
} else {
    echo 'Unknown';
}

It works perfectly!

But let’s see if we can flatten our code to use just one level of an if statement. There’s nothing wrong with nested if statements, but sometimes they’re harder to understand. We really have just 3 possible scenarios:

  1. The age key does not exist or is blank. We print “Unknown”.
  2. The age key is equal to the string “hidden”. For this, print our nice message about contacting the owner.
  3. And if those other conditions don’t apply, print the age!

When we had only one scenario, we just used an if. When we had two scenarios, we used an if-else. For 3 or more, we’ll go crazy with an if-elseif:

if (condition #1) {
    echo 'Unknown';
} elseif (condition #2) {
    echo 'Hi! Email the owner for the age details please!';
} else {
    echo $cutePet['age'];
}

This is really how it looks, except for the “condition #1” and “condition #2” parts where we’ll put real code that returns true or false. Like with the simple if, the else is optional, and you can actually have as many elseif parts as you want depending on how many different scenarios you have.

Tip

If you have many different scenarios, try using the somewhat rare, but handy switch case statement instead of a giant if-elseif block.

Combining Conditions with “or” and the not (!) Operator

Let’s make our code follow this format. First, we need to check if the age key does not exist or if its value is empty. This is kind of the opposite of what we had before:

if (!array_key_exists('age', $cutePet) || $cutePet['age'] == '') {
    echo 'Unknown';
} elseif ('Condition #2') {

} else {

}

Ok, let’s break this down. First, by putting the exclamation point in front of array_key_exists, it negates its value. If the function returns true, this changes it to false and vice-versa. We want the first part of our if to execute if the age key does not exist. The exclamation gives us that exactly.

Next, the && becomes two “pipe” or line symbols (||). These mean “or” instead of and: we want our code to run if the age key does not exist or if its value is blank. Between && and ||, you can create some pretty complex logic in your if statements.

Tip

You can also use extra parenthesis to group conditions together, like you do in math. We’ll see this later.

Finally, we used 2 equal signs (==) to see if the age value is equal to an empty string. This is very important: do not use a single equal sign when comparing 2 values. In fact, no matter where you are, repeat after me: “I solemnly swear to not use a single equal sign to compare values in an if statement”.

The reason is that we use one equal sign to set a value on a variable:

// sets the age key to an empty string
$cutePet['age'] = '';

This is especially tricky because if you use only one equal sign the code will run. But, instead of comparing the two values, it sets the age to an empty string. This wouldn’t break our code here, but it would in almost all other cases.

So when comparing values, use != and ==.

Tip

There are a few other symbols for comparing values, like < and > for comparing numbers. There is also a === symbol, which we’ll talk about later. For a full list, see Comparison Operators

What is an Operator?

And by the way, these are called “operators”. That’s a generic word for a number of different symbols in PHP that operate on a value. We’ve seen a bunch so far, including =, which is called an assignment operator since it assigns a value to a variable. && and || are called logical operators, they help combine different things to see if all of them put together are logically true or false. Knowing how to define an operator isn’t important, just know that when you hear the word “operator”, we’re talking about some special symbol or group of symbols that do some special job.

Phew! Let’s fill in the rest of our if-elseif statement, which should be pretty easy now:

if (!array_key_exists('age', $cutePet) || $cutePet['age'] == '') {
    echo 'Unknown';
} elseif ($cutePet['age'] == 'hidden')
    echo '(contact owner for age)';
} else {
    echo $cutePet['age'];
}

Try it! Oh man, a terrible error!

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘else’ (T_ELSE) in /path/to/index.php on line 101

Let’s go to the line number and try to spot the problem. My editor helps me find it, but let’s look ourselves. Always look first to see if you missed a semicolon - it’s the most common mistake. And also look at the lines above the error. Ah ha! I forgot my opening { on the elseif part. Rookie mistake:

if (!array_key_exists('age', $cutePet) || $cutePet['age'] == '') {
    echo 'Unknown';
} elseif ($cutePet['age'] == 'hidden') {
    echo '(contact owner for age)';
} else {
    echo $cutePet['age'];
}

After fixing it, everything looks great.

Ok, you just learned a lot about if statements and using operators to compare values. I’ll teach you some more tricks later, but now let’s practice and get great with if statements.

Leave a comment!

6
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Default user avatar

Helpful tip:

It is now considered best practice to use the '===' operator unless you have specific reason to use the '==' operator.
Google that and Yoda Conditions if you want to develop good habits that follow Official Symfony Best Practices from the start. Yoda Conditions help you catch an accidental assignment operator (=) on what should of been a comparison operator (=== or ==)

1 Reply

Hey PlayIt,

Thanks for tip! You're totally right here. Actually, this is beginner course, so we left more complicated things for further lessons.

Cheers!

Reply

Hello,
I tried to rewrite code from challenge 3 to make it work.
But for some reason 'Website' think that "Frisbee" is "Tennis ball" and echo 'color' "Yellow" although it schould echo 'color' "surprise".

 <?php
$contents = file_get_contents('toys.json');
$toys = json_decode($contents, true);
?>

<?php foreach ($toys as $toy) { ?>
<h3><?php echo $toy['name']; ?></h3>
<h4>
    <?php
    if ((array_key_exists('color', $toy)) && ($toy['name'] = 'Tennis Ball')) {
        echo 'Yellow';
    } elseif (array_key_exists('color', $toy) && $toy['name'] = 'Frisbee') {
        echo 'surprise';        
    } else{
        echo 'no color';
    }
    ?>
</h4>
<?php } ?>
Reply

Hey Daniel,

It might be so that your challenge instance stopped working correctly and so stopped saving your code to the server. Could you try again, please? The system will create a new challenge instance for you. Let us know if you still have this problem.

Cheers!

Reply

Unfortunately it still doesn't work, probably there is some error, it's not very important, because I have code something else and that worked, so I'm fine.

Thanks for replie.

Reply

Hey Daniel,

Glad to hear you were able to solve that challenge finally. We have "Answer" button below the challenge that will show you the correct code - you can always check that code with your :)

Cheers!

Reply
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