if block inside echo statement

Question

I suspect it s not allowable because I am getting  Parse error  syntax error  unexpected T IF in     error  But I couldn t find a way to accomplish my goal  Here s my code     lt  php      countries    myaddress- gt get countries       foreach  countries as  value       echo   lt option value     value     if  value   United States   echo  selected  selected      gt    value   lt  option gt            gt    What it does is it displays a list of countries in a select element and sets United States as the default  I doesn t work sadly

User · Accepted Answer

You will want to use the a ternary operator which acts as a shortened IF Else statement   echo   lt option value     value         value   United States    selected  selected         gt    value   lt  option gt

User · Answer

In sake of readability it should be something like   lt  php     countries    myaddress- gt get countries      foreach  countries as  value         selected          if  value   United States    selected   selected  selected         echo   lt option value     value      selected   gt    value   lt  option gt          gt    desire to stuff EVERYTHING in a single line is a decease  man  Write distinctly       But there is another way  a better one  There is no need to use echo at all  Learn to use templates  Prepare your data first  and display it only then ready    Business logic part    countries    myaddress- gt get countries     selected country   1        Template part    lt   foreach  countries as  row     gt   lt option value   lt    row  id    gt   lt   if   row  id     current country   gt   selected  gt  lt   endif   gt     lt    row  name    gt   lt  option gt   lt   endforeach   gt

User · Answer

Use a ternary operator   echo   lt option value     value       value   United States     selected  selected           gt    value   lt  option gt      And while you re at it  you could use printf to make your code more readable manageable   printf   lt option value   s   s gt  s lt  option gt         value       value     United States     selected  selected             value

User · Answer

You can always use the    lt condition gt     lt value if true gt     lt value if false gt    syntax  it s called the ternary operator - thanks to Mark for remining me        If  lt condition gt  is true  the statement would be evaluated as  lt value if true gt   If not  it would be evaluated as  lt value if false gt   For instance    fourteen   14   twelve   12  echo  Fourteen is     fourteen  gt   twelve    more than     not more than     twelve     This is the same as    fourteen   14   twelve   12  if  fourteen  gt  12      echo  Fourteen is more than twelve    else    echo  Fourteen is not more than twelve

[php] if block inside echo statement?

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