super basic question

[Anon]

Can someone please tell/teach/show me how and when to use the "?" symbol, by posting a couple/few commonly used code examples.

By any chance, is the ? symbol an elegant way of the longer "if/then" statements, something along the lines of instead of writing:
if(isset($submit)) { echo "hello"; }
you'd write something like:
$submit ? echo "hello";

The reason I ask such a super-basic question here is that it is nearly impossible to search for my answer in forums and/or search engines (ha ha -- you try typing "?" into a search and see where it gets ya :-)

Thank you!!

[van__]

the "?" is used in the URL to denote a query string.

you use it by making a link as so
echo "<a href=\"/mypage.php?foo=$var1&bar=$var2\">";

You can also use it in your code as part of a ternary operation an example of which is posted here:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.operators.comparison.php

[Anon]

if(condition) {
Code if " condition " is true
} else {
Code if " condition " is false
}

=

(condition) ? code if " condition " is true : Code if " condition " is false;

Example :

$name = (isset($POST["name])) ? $POST["name"] : "undefined";

If the POST variable name is set, $name will contain its value. If it isn't set, $name will contain "undefined". This is very useful to avoid notices.