An alternative and very useful syntax is the following one:
statement ? execute if true : execute if false
Ths is very usefull for dynamic outout inside strings, for example:
print('$a is ' . ($a > $b ? 'bigger than' : ($a == $b ? 'equal to' : 'smaler than' )) . ' $b');
This will print "$a is smaler than $b" is $b is bigger than $a, "$a is bigger than $b" if $a si bigger and "$a is equal to $b" if they are same.
else
(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)
经常需要在满足某个条件时执行一条语句，而在不满足该条件时执行其它语句，这正是
else 的功能。else 延伸了
if 语句，可以在 if
语句中的表达式的值为 false 时执行语句。例如以下代码在
$a 大于 $b 时显示
a is bigger than b，反之则显示
a is NOT bigger than b：
<?php
if ($a > $b) {
echo "a is greater than b";
} else {
echo "a is NOT greater than b";
}
?>else 语句仅在 if 以及
elseif（如果有的话）语句中的表达式的值为
false 时执行（参见 elseif）。
注意: 悬挂的 else
在多层嵌套
if-else语句的情况下，else总是与最近的if进行关联。虽然存在缩进（对 PHP 来说，无关紧要）， 但是<?php
$a = false;
$b = true;
if ($a)
if ($b)
echo "b";
else
echo "c";
?>else还是与if ($b)进行关联，所以以上示例不会产生任何输出。虽然可以依赖此特性，但是推荐使用花括号，避免潜在的歧义问题。
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User Contributed Notes 2 notes
dormeydo at gmail dot com ¶
16 years ago
Caliban Darklock ¶
20 years ago
If you're coming from another language that does not have the "elseif" construct (e.g. C++), it's important to recognise that "else if" is a nested language construct and "elseif" is a linear language construct; they may be compared in performance to a recursive loop as opposed to an iterative loop.
<?php
$limit=1000;
for($idx=0;$idx<$limit;$idx++)
{ $list[]="if(false) echo \"$idx;\n\"; else"; }
$list[]=" echo \"$idx\n\";";
$space=implode(" ",$list);| // if ... else if ... else
$nospace=implode("",$list); // if ... elseif ... else
$start=array_sum(explode(" ",microtime()));
eval($space);
$end=array_sum(explode(" ",microtime()));
echo $end-$start . " seconds\n";
$start=array_sum(explode(" ",microtime()));
eval($nospace);
$end=array_sum(explode(" ",microtime()));
echo $end-$start . " seconds\n";
?>
This test should show that "elseif" executes in roughly two-thirds the time of "else if". (Increasing $limit will also eventually cause a parser stack overflow error, but the level where this happens is ridiculous in real world terms. Nobody normally nests if() blocks to more than a thousand levels unless they're trying to break things, which is a whole different problem.)
There is still a need for "else if", as you may have additional code to be executed unconditionally at some rung of the ladder; an "else if" construction allows this unconditional code to be elegantly inserted before or after the entire rest of the process. Consider the following elseif() ladder:
<?php
if($a) { conditional1(); }
elseif($b) { conditional2(); }
elseif($c) { conditional3(); }
elseif($d) { conditional4(); }
elseif($e) { conditional5(); }
elseif($f) { conditional6(); }
elseif($g) { conditional7(); }
elseif($h) { conditional8(); }
else { conditional9(); }
?>
To insert unconditional preprocessing code for $e onward, one need only split the "elseif":
<?php
if($a) { conditional1(); }
elseif($b) { conditional2(); }
elseif($c) { conditional3(); }
elseif($d) { conditional4(); }
else {
....unconditional();
....if($e) { conditional5(); }
....elseif($f) { conditional6(); }
....elseif($g) { conditional7(); }
....elseif($h) { conditional8(); }
....else { conditional9(); }
}
?>
The alternative is to duplicate the unconditional code throughout the construct.
