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)

 H104 - PHP - Control Statements
P206 - Perl - More Loops and Conditionals
P204 - Perl - Conditionals and Loops
C203 - C and C based languages - Conditionals and Loops

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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
Save the Forum - A regular clean sweep
Meet, greet and welcome
What shape is your shake?
Updating a page strictly every minute (PHP, Perl)
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This is a page archived from The Horse's Mouth at http://www.wellho.net/horse/ - the diary and writings of Graham Ellis. Every attempt was made to provide current information at the time the page was written, but things do move forward in our business - new software releases, price changes, new techniques. Please check back via our main site for current courses, prices, versions, etc - any mention of a price in "The Horse's Mouth" cannot be taken as an offer to supply at that price.

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