HANDSONLABS SOFTWARE ACADEMY

The Realistic observation in practice is that PHP has long served as a server side web script. It also supports seamless data processing between web servers and client browsers. Besides, validating the existence of a variable is a common occurrence. For instance, utilizing the super-global arrays such as if isset ($_GET [‘variable’]) { }, is now being modified to behave more effectively by appending a coalesce (??) operator which when added to PHP code returns either:

1. The result of its first operand if it exists and is not NULL or
2.  returns it’s second operand.

PHP 7 Null Coalesce Syntax: $_GET [‘variable’]?? “”

Earlier versions would have raised an E_NOTICE error, however, with php 7 version release, this feature has come to stay. Here are some typical examples:

1. Demonstrating NonCoalesceOperator in PHP 7

/* Demonstrating NonCoalesceOperator */

if(!isset($_GET['person']))
{ if(isset($user_name) && !empty($user_name)){ $person = $user_name; }

else { $person = 'anonymous'; } }
else { $person = $_GET['person']; }

$user_name="";
//better method to the above with PHP 7

$person = $_GET['person'] ?? $user_name ?: 'anonymous'; ?>

Output Blank on the browser: indicating no error

2. Demonstrating NonCoalesceOperator with a PHP class

<?php /* Demonstrating NonCoalesceOperator with a class */
class absolute
{ public $absolute = 'absolute_absolute_absolute'; }

$absolute = new absolute();

echo $absolute-&amp;gt;absolute; // Outputs 'aaa' echo $absolute-&amp;gt;basic;
// Outputs Notice: Undefined property: a::$b echo $absolute-&amp;gt;absolute ??

'$absolute-&amp;gt;absolute does not exists'; // Writes 'aaa'
// This Does not throw an error although $a-&amp;gt;b does not exist.
echo $absolute-&amp;gt;basic ?? '$absolute-&amp;gt;basic does not exist.';
// Writes $a-&amp;gt;b does not exist.
// Again, this Does not throw an error although $absolute-&amp;gt;basic and also $a-&amp;gt;b-&amp;gt;c does not exist.
echo $absolute-&amp;gt;basic-&amp;gt;cman ?? '$absolute-&amp;gt;basic-&amp;gt;cman does not exist.';
// Writes $a-&amp;gt;b-&amp;gt;c does not exist. ?&amp;gt;

Output:

absolute_absolute_absolute Notice: Undefined property: absolute::$basic in php7_NonCoalesceOperator3.php on line 14 absolute_absolute_absolute$absolute->basic does not exist.$absolute->basic->cman does not exist.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

About the Author: Oluwatobi Owoeye has over seventeen years’ experience in Computer Systems and Technologies with several evidence based results. He has worked in several Information Technology projects. A published Author and currently specializing in Robotics & Mobile Computing: Analytics, Computer Vision, Distributed & Parallel Computing, and Machine Learning.

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