IF: ... ENDIF

[pck76]

Hi all,

I'm working on some code that has a lot of loops that written using colon + closing keyword, like this:

if (condition) :
  // instructions
endif;

I haven't found any reference to it on PHPmanual, so I was wondering whether this can be used or is something deprecated and should be changed into the usual curly bracketed style?
eg:

if (condition) {
 // instructions
}

thanks,
Patrick

[NogDog]

Alternative syntax for control structures.

As far as I know there is no danger of it being deprecated, and its use over the more commonly used curly braces syntax is purely a matter of style. My personal style preference is the curly braces as I find it easier to see at a quick glance in the source code, but your mileage may vary.

[pck76]

Thanks NogDog!

Talking about curly braces, in another point of that file I've seen a 'strange' (to me, obviously) use of curly braces, like this:

$a = "{$b}somestring"

is this again something done just to improve readability (eg. equivalent to

$a = $b . "somestring"

or it is something different?

thanks,
Patrick

[NogDog]

That's "complex variable notaton" within a double-quote string or heredoc string. Normally it's only needed with more "complex" variables, in particular arrays using quoted indexes, e.g.:

echo "Hello, {$name['world']}.";