Firstly, this line here will always evaluate to true, because you are using a single =
which is an assignment operator:
if($dangerous = 'yes') // this will always be true
You need to use ==
for a comparison operator, or ===
for strict comparison which takes variable types and values into consideration as well. For more info on the difference between the comparison operators, see here.
The way you're doing it currently is pretty widely used, but is not the best practice. Your variable $dangerous
will be set every time, and you need to check for the value of it to determine whether to evaluate your conditions or not:
if($dangerous == 'yes') {
// do dangerous stuff
}
Better practice, as you've said, is to use a boolean variable which will evaluate to true or false (above example in this same test will evaluate to true in both cases):
$dangerous = true; // or false;
if($dangerous) {
// do dangerous stuff
}
Likewise, if it's not dangerous:
if(!$dangerous) {
// pretty safe, but this will evaluate to true for false, null, zero etc
}
In this example, !$dangerous
will evaluate to true when $dangerous
is null, zero etc, so if you need a strict comparison for the value of false, you'll need the ===
comparison operator:
if($dangerous === false) {
// false evaluates to true when comparing for a false value
// false evaluates to false when comparing for a null value
}
Better to use a boolean variable over a string representation of a result in most cases. Something to keep in mind though is that if your your boolean variable represents the return of a function call, it might not always be consistent.