nested IF statements - in the checker

Anon

Basically, I'm writing a script right now in which the administrator will be able to choose which things it has to check for in order to execute certain functions. For example, it by default looks to see if the user (who is logged in) is an administrator, a moderator or just a regular user - but the head administrator can pick if they need to be some of these things. For example (this is a message board system), people might not have to be moderators to close their own threads. How would I accomplish this kind of a nested IF-THEN? It seems like it would look like this:

<pre>
if ($some_variable==1 && (if ($some_other_variable==1) $another_variable==2 &&) $yet_another_variable==0) {
some code
}
</pre>

but that seems to break every coding convention that there is. Is there some way to check to see what needs to be checked without sending it through an if-then that checks to see what needs to be checked and then reproducing it for each one? That seems like it would be very inefficient and roundabout, and would waste disc space.

--Mr. P

Anon

That's not even valid syntax the way you've written it.

You can do this one of two ways:

if (condition_a)
   {
   if (condition_b)
      {
      if (condition_c)
...

if (condition_a && condition_b && condition_c)
   {
...

Anon

That's kind of like what I'm looking for... except it doesn't check to see what needs to be checked. What I'm looking for is to be able to see what needs to be checked in the if statement, and then check only what needs to be checked. Complicated, no? Not simply putting to make it check more than one thing, but to check what to check. Oy. I'm confusing myself...

--Mr. P

Anon

Oy. I'm confusing myself...

Me too--it's no longer clear what you're asking.

But going back to your original question, perhaps you're trying to do it too concisely. Instead of worrying about the most compact way to do it, start with the clearest and plainest way. If it turns out to be too slow, at least you have a functionally correction version to use as a reference!

In addition, how you might do all this is going to be closely tied in to how you store the permissions info in the first place. So perhaps you should redo your request here, but supply some more detail about how the "head administrator's" choices about things like "can users close their own threads" will be stored and retrieved.

Anon

I think what he is trying to ask is this...

Is PHP nice enough to allow nested 'if's (not nested if-else's)

if (condition && if (new_condition)) {
new_list;
...
} // end of new_condition list
{ list;
...
} // end of condition list

and if I am correct, then I believe the answer to the question is no...no scripting language or otherwise allows this kind of behavior AFAIK.

The closest you can come to this is:

if (condition) {
if {new_condition) {
new_list;
...
} // end of new_condition
list;
...
} else {
list_otherwise;
...
} // end of condition & condition_otherwise

Anon

Like Kirk said, you are trying to make things too compact too quickly.
Write all your situations down, each possibility.

if user==admin, check this.
if user==moderator, check this and that.
if user==moderator and this!=that, check those.

etc.
Also, look at the switch() function, that might be helpfull too.