OriginalMacBabe

Yes, thank you. That is exactly how I read it. I disagree. In learning how to code, I find it useful to understand the limits. It doesn't mean I would necessarily use it in its extreme iterations. Nonetheless, practicing the application of correct syntax options is never a "useless exercise" IMHO, and is particularly useful for facilitating/avoiding future debugging. Those slips of semicolons, for example, are often pretty hard to spot, especially when one's understanding of where they are/not supposed to be used is insufficiently comprehensive. Thank you for the explanation of isset() and empty(). I will implement as suggested. It'll take me a bit to decipher the example you provided - proving your point exactly. So in this particular application, it would be fine since the session variable will only be evaluated on subsequent page calls. That is good to know. But, are you saying that for best practice, I should add exit() after the session_write_close()?

Ok. So back to the first iteration. Yes, clearly, the boolean option is a better choice. And, I'm getting the message that I cannot reduce the process to a single ternary operation, although no one has explicitly answered this question. @rwwd: I agree that checking to see if the form has been properly submitted is generally a good idea, but I thought that since the only item in the form is the checkbox and the form's action consists entirely of the code discussed here (i.e., there is nothing that might be of advantage to a bot) that in this case the test was superfluous. However, your comment does leave me a bit confused. I thought that if the checkbox had not been checked it would not be set. So what is the difference between the variable being set and it being empty?

Well, that was the question. Are you suggesting that I cannot put both commands (setting the session variable and then declaring the header) into the statement? Or, do they need to be placed inside a bracket? Or, is there no way to achieve this in one statement?

Thank you for that. I, too, realize that the last version was extreme, but as I said, it had become a theoretical exercise by that point - the ternary operator is such an elegant solution. Despite the readability issue, did I actually get the code right? Would it work? Moving along to the practical, I also think the second last version is more readable, I just wasn't sure I could put the two commands into the statement. Because the form consists only of the single checkbox and the submit button, if it is not checked, it is not set (as far as I understand). Thus, I thought using isset would be the most efficient test. In the first condensed version, the first line could reasonably be changed (and shortened) to obtain a boolean result: $_SESSION['Consented'] = isset($_POST['ConsentCheckbox']); Sticking with the second condensed (second last) version, am I reading you correctly when you say I should remove the quotes from the assignment and change it to this (remembering that this code represents the form's action)? <?php session_start(); isset($_POST['ConsentCheckbox']) ? $_SESSION['Consented']=true; header('Location: http://www.mySite.com/welcome') : header('Location: http://www.mySite/errors/NotConsented'); session_write_close(); ?> And follow up with this simple test at the top of subsequent pages on the site (actually a template): <?php session start(); if($_SESSION['Consented'] !=== true) header('Location: http://mySite.com'); ?> Thanx

Please bear with me in the following exercise. I'm fairly new to php (but not coding) and am trying to push my skills for the future, so I'm going beyond a problem for which I already have a solution to see if I understand the coding principles correctly. I am trying to understand just how far I can push the ternary operator shorthand. I know how to do simple tasks, but I'm wondering if I can perform more than one command in the same statement? I'm a little confused because I'd like to both set a session variable and do a page redirect and I have a feeling that the order of these operations matters, so all I've done here may be incorrect. I have a form on the front page of my site that includes a checkbox that is required in order to enter the site. The form action goes to a page where this is checked, a $_SESSION variable is set, and the page is redirected. I am also not sure if I need the session_write_close(); command, or if it is in the right place. In the full length version, it could be moved into the set of commands following the IF. Here is the full length code that I would like to translate into shorthand: <?php session_start(); if (isset($_POST['ConsentCheckbox']) { $_SESSION['Consented'] = 'true'; header('Location: http://www.mySite/welcome'); } else { header('Location: http://www.mySite/errors/NotConsented'); } session_write_close(); ?> The if/else conditions translate easily into these two lines of code, which could be one line if I didn't also need to set the session variable: <?php session_start(); $_SESSION['Consented'] = isset($_POST['ConsentCheckbox']) ? 'true' : 'false'; header('Location: http://mySite.com/'.($_SESSION['Consented'] ? 'welcome' : 'error/NotConsented')); session_write_close(); ?> But, I really only need to set the $_SESSION variable if the $_POST['ConsentCheckbox'] is set. This makes the test on the following pages of my site much simpler (where I test to see if the $_SESSION variable is set and then either redirect to the consent form or load the desired page). SO, I'm wondering if it can be further condensed. I've come up with these possibilities, but am not totally sure. This has now become a theoretical exercise in coding for me. Here is what I think is possible, but I have a couple of outstanding questions, so I'd like some input, please. I first translated it into the following. I think this is correct, although I'm not sure if I need brackets around the multiple commands in the TRUE section. <?php session_start(); isset($_POST['ConsentCheckbox']) ? $_SESSION['Consented']='true'; header('Location: http://www.mySite.com/welcome') : header('Location: http://www.mySite/errors/NotConsented'); session_write_close(); ?> Then, I wondered if I can even further condense it in the following way? Here is where the order of the commands is likely to break the code - and I'm not entirely sure that my use of double quotes will suffice instead of escaping out the end bracket of the header() command: <?php session_start(); header('Location: http://www.mySite.com/'.(isset($_Post['ConsentCheckbox']) ? "welcome')"; $_SESSION['Consented'] = 'true' : "errors/NotConsented')"); session_write_close(); ?> Have I gone too far? Thanks