Please HELP: hiding null results

[Anon]

Here is a snip from my code...

$wtitle = $row['wtitle'];

$author = $row['author'];

$display_block .= "

<B>Titile: </B>$wtitle<BR>
<B>Author: </B>$author<BR>

My question is How do I hide the html results for the AUTHOR if there is no data in the data base. Please show me the code ... I am new and desparate.

if field author contains any data... Output this HTML.

<B>Titile: </B>$wtitle<BR>
<B>Author: </B>$author<BR>

if field author is EMPTY... Output JUST this HTML.

<B>Titile: </B>$wtitle<BR>

thanks in advance for ANY help.

Fritz Jung

[bfranco]

*try this:

$wtitle = $row['wtitle'];
$author = $row['author'];
$display_block.="Title: $wtitle<br>";
if ($author)
$display_block .= "Author: $author<br>";

*or the short way:

$wtitle = $row['wtitle'];
$author = $row['author'];
$display_block.="Title: $wtitle<br>".($author?"Author: $author<br>":"");

[[deleted]]

I'd change

if ($author)
$display_block .= "Author: $author<br>";

to

if ($author!='')
{
$display_block .= "Author: $author<br>";
}

Why?
-Always compare things with what you want to compare them with. just putting "if($author)" will fail if author contains a zero.
-Always write the full IF statement, including brackets. It is more typing, but helps a sh*tload for readability.
-Shortcut code is compact, but completely unreadable.

[bfranco]

jajaja, vincent, I'm begining to hate you 🙂

1)how many books have you read from the famous author "0"???? because "if ($author)" will fail if and only if $author is "0"... any other thing, even if it contains a "0" will work. In this case, it's just fine the way it is.
2)brackets???? just a matter of tastes.
3)again, a matter of tastes.

I'm a c/c++ programmer, and I don't have any trouble reading ifs sentences with or without brackets, or asking for a variable being diferent from "0" or just evaluating the variable itself.