It's smart to have your program say "there IS in stock" or "there ARE 2 in stock" ... but if you write your code using an "if" and "else" type structure it can become quite verbose.

The ? ... : operator - available in many languages including C, Perl and PHP - allows you to write a single "if,else" line in a much shorter form:

{condition} ? {value if true} : {value if false}

Here's an subtle example of this operator in use - an image from our pricing for a two day public course:



where you'll note "room" and "rooms". The code, where $ns is a variable containing the number of students:

$rlet = ($ns==1) ? "":"s";
$pricing[$ns] .= "<b>With hotel room$rlet<b><br>";
(written 2007-05-18 08:25:17)

 C203 - C and C based languages - Conditionals and Loops
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H104 - PHP - Control Statements
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  [2304] Extracting real data from an exported file in PHP or Perl - (2009-07-25)
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  [657] The ternary operator in Python - (2006-03-25)
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P204 - Perl - Conditionals and Loops
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P206 - Perl - More Loops and Conditionals
  [2892] Alternative loops and conditionals in Ruby and Perl - (2010-07-28)
  [2824] A pint of Black Rat, and a lazy barman - (2010-06-25)
  [2817] Setting a safety net or fallback value in Perl - (2010-06-19)
  [2815] switch and case, or given and when in Perl - (2010-06-17)
  [2711] For loop - checked once, or evety time? Ruby v Perl comparison and contrast - (2010-04-07)
  [299] What - no switch or case statement? - (2005-05-03)
  [138] Perl - redo and last without a loop - (2004-12-02)

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Regular Express Primer
Drawing hands on a clock face - PHP
Dangerous Dogs and Hotel Marketing
What are WEB-INF and META-INF directories?
Smart English Output - via PHP and Perl ? : operator
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What shape is your shake?
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