PHP: Use the short if-statement without else?

You can't use it without the else. But you can try this:

($thisVar != $thatVar ?: doThis());

or

if ($thisVar == $thatVar) doThis();

The ternary operator is designed to yield one of two values. It's an expression, not a statement, and you shouldn't use it as a shorter alternative to if/else.

There is no way to leave out the : part: what value would the expression evaluate to if you did?

If you're calling methods with side effects, use if/else. Don't take short cuts. Readability is more important than saving a few characters.

USE NULL TO SKIP STATEMENTS WHEN IT IS IN SHORTHAND

$a == $b? $a = 10 : NULL;

Just use logical operators : AND, OR, &&, ||, etc.

($thisVar === $thatVar) && doThis();

a frequent use is :

$obj = doSomething($params) or throw new \Exception('Failed to do');

Working for me:

$leftHand != $rightHand?doThis():null;
$leftHand == $rightHand?null:doThis();

hmm interesting, because executing the below code is valid. Observe:

for ($i = 1; $i <=10; $i++) {
    if ($i % 2) {
      echo $i;
    }
  }

The above code indeed, will output 13579

Notice no 'else' clause was used in the above.

If you wanted to inform the user of whether $i % 2 == FALSE ($i's divisor yielded remainder 0), you could include an else clause to print out the even numbers like shown below:

for ($i = 1; $i <=10; $i++) {
    if ($i % 2) {
      echo "$i is odd";
      echo "<br />";
    } else {
      echo "$i is even";
      echo "<br />";
    }
  }

Giving you the output: 1 is odd 2 is even 3 is odd 4 is even 5 is odd 6 is even 7 is odd 8 is even 9 is odd 10 is even

I hope my amazingly easy to understand examples will help all newcomers to PHP, hands down the 'best' server-side scripting language for building dynamic web applications :-)

Here is how you should implement a short if statement without else

$side = 'Right';

($side == 'Right') ? $sideValue ='Value for Right Side':'';