What exactly does || mean?

Question

return (empty($neededRole) || strcasecmp($role, 'admin') == 0 || strcasecmp($role, $neededRole) == 0);

What exactly does the || mean in this statement? Can someone put this in english for me.

I promise I've googled this but I guess I don't know what to google for because I can't find anything.

thanks:)

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5662242/can-someone-please-put-this-in-english-for-me-php-cakephp — Nabeel, Apr 14 '11 at 16:57
*(related)* [What does that symbol mean in PHP](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3737139/reference-what-does-this-symbol-mean-in-php) — Gordon, Apr 14 '11 at 17:46
-1 You should really review some programming basics. You won't code anything good in PHP if you even ignore the **very** basics of programming :( I'm very sorry to tell you this. — gd1, Apr 14 '11 at 18:59

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 14 '11 at 16:56

3

It is the OR logicial operator.

answered Apr 14 '11 at 16:56

Daniel A. White

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 14 '11 at 16:56

2

Googling symbols is always hard. Don't worry: || means or in the statement. Don't confuse it for Xor which is slightly different:

References:

answered Apr 14 '11 at 16:56

Shoe

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 14 '11 at 16:57

0

This is an OR operator. It is true if any of it's 'parameters' is true.

answered Apr 14 '11 at 16:57

Dr McKay

Hummm... now I'm even more confused. I thought it would at least return a value, ie admin or user. If I give you the full function would you look at it and tell me what exactly it would return? I'll stick it in the next comment – BPD Apr 14 '11 at 17:31
public function isAuthorized() { $role = $this->Auth->user('role'); $neededRole = null; $prefix = !empty($this->params['prefix']) ? $this->params['prefix'] : null; if (!empty($prefix) && in_array($prefix, Configure::read('Routing.prefixes'))) { $neededRole = $prefix; } return (empty($neededRole) || strcasecmp($role, 'admin') == 0 || strcasecmp($role, $neededRole) == 0); } – BPD Apr 14 '11 at 17:32
Do I look like a parser? Would you at least format your code? Code in your question will probably return if user is admin or user. What I meant in my answer is: if any of OR operands if true, operator returns true, false otherwise. – Dr McKay Apr 14 '11 at 17:52
Thanks Dr McKay, I appreciate your help. And sorry about the code. I can't figure out how to do a carriage return without posting a whole new comment! – BPD Apr 14 '11 at 21:25

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Apr 14 '11 at 16:58

0

|| means or. It's a logical or, so it's true if at least one of the terms is true, false otherwise.

edited Apr 14 '11 at 16:58

KJYe.Name

answered Apr 14 '11 at 16:58

boisvert

4 Answers4