The PHP Ternary Operator is a way to quickly express if/else statements. The ternary operator follows the following syntax:

 

( boolean expression ) ? if_true : if_false;

 

If the boolean expression evaluates to true, the “if_true” result is displayed, otherwise the “if_false” result is displayed.

Just as a quick recap, the normal if/else syntax looks like the following:

 

<?php

$expression = true;if ( $expression ) {
  // do statement if true
} else {
  // do statement if false
}

?>

 

This gets redundant especially when you’re just echoing statements. You will need to write 2 different echo statements: one for the if true portion and the other for the if false portion. The ternary operator can be squeezed into a single echo statement itself.

 

echo ( boolean expression ) ? if_true : if_false;

 

Let’s look at an example.

 

<?php

$money = 2000;

echo ( $money >= 2000 ) ? "Time to spend" : "Need more money";

?>

 

Since the variable $money contains 2000, the expression $money ≥ 2000 evaluates to true, so “Time to spend” is displayed on the screen. If the value that was stored inside of the $money variable was less than 2000, you would see “Need more money” on your screen.

Ternary operators are also great when you need to assign values to a variable after some decision is made.

 

<?php

$money = 2000;

$isBuyingAMountainBike = ( $money >= 2000 ) ? true : false;

?>

 

In the statement above, PHP:

1. Assigns 2000 to the $money variable.
2. Progresses to the $isBuyingAMountainBike variable. It sees that it contains a ternary operator.
3. PHP evaluates the expression, $money ≥ 2000. The expression returns true.
4. Since the expression returned true, PHP goes into the “if_true” portion of the ternary expression and sees that it contains the value true.
5. The value true is assigned to the $isBuyingAMountainBike variable.

We could have easily placed Yes/No or 1/0 values instead of true/false for the ternary expression above.

Let’s look at an example where the ternary operator really starts to shine. Imagine that we have a variable $employeeOrCustomer. We’re writing out an email and depending on the value of the variable, we want to either print a formal greeting, or a more laid back one. We’re going to store the whole message inside of the $msg variable. If we were not acquainted with the ternary operator, we might use the if/else statement to generate our $msg value.

 

<?php

$employeeOrCustomer = "employee";

$msg = "Hey ";

if ( $employeeOrCustomer == "employee" ) {
    $msg .= "dude";
} else {
    $msg .= "sir/ma'am";
}

$msg .= ",<br><br>How are you?";

var_dump($msg);

?>

 

The if/else statement was added so that it can make a decision. It’s trying to figure out whether it will append “dude” or “sir/ma’am” to the $msg value. We can achieve the same result with one statement thanks to the ternary operator.

 

<?php

$employeeOrCustomer = "employee";

$msg2 = "Hey " . ( ($employeeOrCustomer == "employee") ? "dude" : "sir/ma'am" ) . ",<br><br>How are you?";

var_dump($msg2);

?>

 

The ternary operator should not be abused; it should only be used in simple if/else decision making. It you have nested expressions, you should try to either convert the nested boolean expression into a single expression with the help of logical operators, like the && operator, or simply use the if/else structure.

 

<?php

if ( $employeeOrCustomer == "employee" ) {
  
    echo "Yo. ";
  
    if ( $money >= 2000000 ) {
        echo "I'm about to quit cause I'm rich";
    }
}

?>

 

The ternary operator is something that you’ll use quite frequently throughout your programming career, so get used to it. You’ll love it.