Using the PHP ternary operator to return a specific value

Question

I googled this and browsed stack overflow already. I am trying to shorten my code and I have this working method below I want to rewrite in ternary style. Can someone tell me if this is possible and if so what im doing wrong. Thanks.

public function __get($field){ //refactor this using ternary method
    if($field == 'user_id'){
        return $this->uid;
    } else {
        return $this->fields[$field];
    }
}

I started with this:

($field == 'user_id') return $this->uid : return $this->fields[$field];

and it gives me a unexpected return error.

I tried using another stack overflow solution that listed the return before the values and that didnt work.

return $field == 'user_id' ? $this->uid : $this->fields[$field];

This gives me some other error about unexpected public, like my method isnt closing correctly.

your last code snippet is okay. your error message sounds like you are doing something else wrong — Gordon, Sep 05 '12 at 15:02
The latter is definitely the right way; perhaps you could share the exact error message. — Ja͢ck, Sep 05 '12 at 15:02
btw, the unexpected return error is likely due to the missing `?` — Andreas Grapentin, Sep 05 '12 at 15:12
could you post the complete code of the method? as of now, I'd guess your number of closing curly brackets could be wrong. — Andreas Grapentin, Sep 05 '12 at 15:14
The first example fails not only because of the missing `?`, but because `return (anything)` is not an expression. If it were, wackiness like `$x = return 3;` would be legal. — cHao, Sep 05 '12 at 16:28

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 05 '12 at 15:17

1

I'm going to guess it's something like this; you refactored your code to this:

public function __get($field){ //refactor this using ternary method
        return $field == 'user_id' ? $this->uid : $this->fields[$field];
    }
}

public function otherfunction() { /* ... */ }

The braces don't match and therefore it closes the class definition and the next parser error is 'unexpected public' :)

answered Sep 05 '12 at 15:17

Ja͢ck

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very likely. I just had the same thought :) – Andreas Grapentin Sep 05 '12 at 15:17

Using the PHP ternary operator to return a specific value

1 Answers1