Why Does the Ternary Operator and String Concatenation Produce Anomalous Behavior?

Ternary Operator and String Concatenation Anomalous Behavior

Conundrum

Consider the following code snippet:

<code class="php">$description = 'Paper: ' . ($paperType == 'bond') ? 'Bond' : 'Other';</code>

One might anticipate that this code would assign the string 'Paper: Bond' to $description if $paperType is 'bond' and 'Paper: Other' otherwise. However, the observed behavior is different.

Discerning the Deviation

Upon execution, $description receives either 'Bond' or 'Other', omitting the 'Paper: ' preface. This unexpected outcome stems from the erroneous placement of parentheses.

Rectifying the Anomaly

To correct the code, parentheses must be added to ensure that the string is concatenated in the correct order:

<code class="php">$description = 'Paper: ' . ($paperType == 'bond' ? 'Bond' : 'Other');</code>

By enclosing the ternary expression in parentheses, we ensure that the concatenation operation is performed first, attaching 'Paper: ' to the concatenated result of 'Bond' or 'Other'.

The above is the detailed content of Why Does the Ternary Operator and String Concatenation Produce Anomalous Behavior?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!