Is there a php operator similar to javascript's "||"?

Question

In javascript the logical or-operator returns the first truthy operand, e.g.

var x = null || 5 || 1;

assigns 5 to x.
Is there somthing similar for php?

Read about [logical operators](http://php.net/manual/en/language.operators.logical.php) in PHP.net after understanting how php language works. — al'ein, Aug 26 '15 at 14:57
This is called a "null coalescing" or in PHP/JavaScript it's really an "empty coalescing" I guess. There are actually lots of duplicates of this worded in various ways on SO...here's one: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1013493/coalesce-function-for-php — Kevin Nelson, Aug 26 '15 at 15:01

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 26 '15 at 14:56

2

The use case you describe is: if the value exists use it, otherwise use a default value. This is a pretty common pattern.

As of PHP 5.3 you can do:

$var = $foo ?: 5;

In older versions you can do:

$var = $foo ? $foo : 5;

Note that in:

var x = null || 5 || 1;

the final path || 1 will never get chosen because 5 is never falsy.

answered Aug 26 '15 at 14:56

Halcyon

it was just an example – error 404 username_not_found Aug 26 '15 at 15:01
Just so you stay updated for the future, I'd suggest that you add in PHP 7's `??` to your answer. PHP is finally getting a true null coalescing operator: http://php.net/manual/en/language.operators.comparison.php – Kevin Nelson Aug 26 '15 at 15:12

Daniel · Answer 2 · 2015-08-26T15:03:27.593

|| is a logical operator in PHP and many other programming languages. Learn more about logical operators in the official PHP documentation.

What you are searching for is a ternary operator, which is the following in PHP:

$valueOne = $null ? $null : $five;

Since PHP 5.3 you may use the short form:

$valueOne = $null ?: $five;

And since its associativity is left you may use it multiple times successively:

$valueOne = $null ?: $five ?: $one;

2 Answers2