Assuming very easy question

[jburridge]

Why does my following code display "It worked!" in the browser?

<?php
	$a = 6;
	$b = 1;
	$c = $a + $b;
?>
<?php
	if ($c = 3)
	{echo "It worked!";}
	else
	{echo "It didn't work :(";}
?>

[jcbones]

Because $c will always be true if you set it to three, but I think you want to compare it to three.  So you should add another equal sign to that.

 

 

= //assignment
== //comparison
=== //strict comparison

[jburridge]

Ohh thank you so much! I didn't realize doing the = sign would reset the value of $c to 3.

 

I'll have to look up the differences between what you just posted, Thank you!

[Irate]

Basically, if you use the assignment operator =, the left-hand argument and the right-hand argument are evaluated, right is assigned to left and the boolean true is returned. So, checking if( $a = 5 ) { ... } is the same as checking if( true ) { ... } which is always run by PHP.

The two equality operators (== and ===) compare the arguments for, well, equality and return true or false, based on the comparison.

You should use the strict equality operator === over the normal equality operator ==, because the normal equality operator will attempt type conversion.

Checking if( "" == false ) { ... } would have the statement become true, so the code will be run, whereas checking if( "" === false ) { ... } will not have the code being run, as no type conversion is performed.

Hope this helped a bit.

[mac_gyver]

the boolean true is returned

 

 

except that's incorrect. the value that was assigned is tested. a value that is equivalent to false will result in the else {} branch being run. give this a try -

if($a = 0){
    echo 'zero';
} else {
    echo 'not zero';
}