Is there a way to do this check without two if statements in PHP?

Question

i have this if statement

if(file_exists( $_SERVER{'DOCUMENT_ROOT'}.$writabledir.$name) && filemtime($_SERVER{'DOCUMENT_ROOT'}.$writabledir.$name) < $olddate)  {

if the file is there all is well but if the file is not there I get this error

 Warning: filemtime(): stat failed for /User....

I know I can do an if and then an inner if but is there a better way?

have a look at: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/136899/suppress-error-with-operator-in-php — ldg, Sep 30 '11 at 21:08
storing the file name in a temp var would be shorter and more readable — ariel, Sep 30 '11 at 21:18
@Byron Whitlock: I think *you* don't understand short circuit.. — Karoly Horvath, Sep 30 '11 at 21:20
@Byron Whitlock: it *will* be executed. Now think about it, who was on that horse? — Karoly Horvath, Sep 30 '11 at 21:25
@Alex: that's strange, could you report us the `ls -la` for the directory & file? — Karoly Horvath, Sep 30 '11 at 21:32
@Byron Whitlock: no it isn't. Would you explain what's wrong with that code? How do you know what the OP wanted to do? — Karoly Horvath, Sep 30 '11 at 21:36
@yi_H - nothing is wrong with the code. It looks like it should work. Game point yi_H. — Byron Whitlock, Sep 30 '11 at 21:38

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 30 '11 at 21:07

If file_exists is returning false, then the filemtime call should never happen. && is a short-circuiting logical AND in PHP, meaning that if it doesn't need to make the second call (i.e. first part of the logical statement is false, therefore there is no way the whole statement could be true), it won't. There might be something else weird going on in your code.

Is there a way to do this check without two if statements in PHP?

1 Answers1