"Either", or just lots of "Elseif"s?

Darien_Shields

Is there any way to have lots of possible conditions that return true for an "If" statement? Like, say for instance, I wanted the script to execute if the variable was "North", "north", "N", "n" etc. etc. Would I have to do

if ($action == North) {
<action>
}
elsif ($action == north) {
<action>
}

etc. etc. ?

laserlight

Use [man]strtolower/man or [man]strtoupper/man to ensure a uniform case, then check:

$action = strtolower($action);
if ($action == 'north' || $action == 'n') {
	// action
}

halojoy

I would prefer laserlight's solution. It is more simple.

... but here is another way

<?php

// all allowed actions
$allowed = array( 'north', 'n', 'North', 'N' );

foreach( $allowed AS $option ) {
    if ( $action == $option ) {

    // perform action
    echo $action;

}
}

if is enough that first character is 'N' or 'n', regardless what the other characters are
(for example: n, N, nanny, Nipper, will all trigger action)
This useful if we expect answer: yes, Yes, YES, y, Y and no, No, NO, n, N
then we can use this

<?php

// test the first char of $action in lower case
if ( strtolower( $action{0} ) == 'n' ){

//perform 'NO' action
echo $action;

}

if ( strtolower( $action{0} ) == 'y' ){

//perform 'YES' action
echo $action;

}

?>

laserlight

If you want to use halojoy's suggestion, then you should adapt it to:

$allowed = array( 'north', 'n', 'North', 'N' );
if (in_array($action, $allowed)) {
	// perform action
}

jmrouleau

Review switch statements in the php manual...I think this is what you are looking for.

thorpe

switch (strtolower($action)) {
  case 'north':
  case 'n':
    // do north stuff.
    echo 'action is north';
  break;
}