what's the meaning of "|=" in PHP

Question

I'm reading other's php code, and there's one line writes:

    if ($isprivate)
  {
    $status |= STATUS_PRIVATE;
  }

I have no idea what does "|=" mean? Can anyone help on it?

Did you try looking for a list of operators in official PHP documentation? — Patashu, Apr 30 '13 at 00:51
Any operator of the form `a ⊛= b` is a shorthand for `a = a ⊛ b` — Niet the Dark Absol, Apr 30 '13 at 00:53
In general, any binary operator can be used in the form `dest = expression`, it means `dest = dest expression`. — Barmar, Apr 30 '13 at 00:53

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 30 '13 at 00:55

| is a bitwise operator. It takes two numbers and conducts a bitwise OR operation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitwise_OR#OR

Ex: A = 4 B = 3

In binary: A = 100 B = 011

A | B == 111 (in binary) == 7 (in decimal)

A |= B is the same as A = A | B

In your specific example, the code is checking to see if $isPrivate is true. If it is, it makes the bit marked by STATUS_PRIVATE set to TRUE in the $status variable.

sectus · Answer 2 · 2013-04-30T00:57:22.590

1

This is a shorthand of this:

$status =  $status | STATUS_PRIVATE;

Or (inclusive or)

For example

define(STATUS_PRIVATE, 0b01);
$status = 0b00;
$status |= STATUS_PRIVATE; //status become 0b01;

edited Apr 30 '13 at 00:57

answered Apr 30 '13 at 00:50

sectus

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This is doing what exactly? – Daryl Gill Apr 30 '13 at 00:52
It sets the `STATUS_PRIVATE` flag to true. – C0deH4cker Apr 30 '13 at 00:53

what's the meaning of "|=" in PHP

2 Answers2