Explore Ternary Operator and Yoda Conditionals in WordPress Coding Standards

We've covered a lot at this point in the series. So far we have covered the following topics:

• Naming Conventions and Function Parameters
• Use of single quotes and double quotes
• Indentation, Space Usage and Trailing Spaces
• Braces styles, regular expressions and PHP tags

A lot of stuff, right?

In this particular article, I think we should lighten things up a bit before getting into the last topic. Therefore, we will discuss two very simple topics (often ignored or overly complicated).

Specifically, we will discuss the ternary operator, and we will discuss the Yoda condition.

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A word about WordPress conditions

When writing WordPress-based code, coding standards strictly state that we should aim for readability first. Straight from the Codex:

Generally speaking, readability is more important than cleverness or brevity.

But there are some nuances. Some developers feel that the ternary operator is somewhat inconsistent with this particular principle, especially since it is another way of writing if/else statements, and if the developer is not familiar with writing or read the ternary operator, then this violates this principle.

We will discuss this issue in more depth later.

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ternary operator

First of all, for those unfamiliar, the ternary operator is a simplified way of writing if/else conditional statements. Usually only used when the condition is in its simplest form and only when there is a single if and a single else block.

For example, suppose we have a condition like this:

$uses_gasoline = null;

if ( 'hybrid' == $car_type ) {
	$uses_gasoline = false;
} else {
	$uses_gasoline = true;
}

echo $uses_gasoline;

Of course, this is a bit contrived example, but you get the idea. After all, I just want to demonstrate how to convert such a condition into a form using the ternary operator.

Based on the above example, you can do the following:

$uses_gasoline = 'hybrid' == $car_type ? false : true;
echo $uses_gasoline;

Does it make sense? One important thing to note: the ternary operator is testing for true (not false, obviously).

For what it's worth, I find this a lot like reading a sentence. The first clause poses a question (obviously punctuated with a question mark) and returns two possible answers based on conditional evaluation.

There is a warning to check whether everything recorded in the Codex is true:

Using is an exception! empty(), since testing false here is often more intuitive.

In my experience, this is the only time negative evaluation is used in a conditional statement. In all my time using the ternary operator, I've found that testing for false often makes ternary calculations harder to decipher.

Also, I find it's better to provide one assessment, maybe two assessments in a very simple, clear case.

Beyond that, this is how you use the ternary operator in your daily WordPress work

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Yoda Conditions

If you're paying close attention, you'll notice that I do something that most programming languages ​​(even PHP-based platforms outside of WordPress) don't typically do:

Comparison of conditions is done by comparing the value to the variable; not the other way around.

Traditionally, we would see something like this:

$uses_gasoline = null;

if ( $car_type == 'hybrid' ) {
	$uses_gasoline = false;
} else {
	$uses_gasoline = true;
}

echo $uses_gasoline;

The corresponding ternary operator looks like this:

$uses_gasoline = $car_type == 'hybrid' ? false : true;
echo $uses_gasoline;

If most programming languages ​​and platforms don't use Yoda conditions, then why should WordPress?

According to Codex Alimentarius:

In the example above, if you omit an equal sign (admit it, this happens to even the most experienced of us), you will get a parsing error because you Cannot be assigned to a constant like true. If the statement were the opposite ( $the_force = true ), then the assignment would be completely valid, returning 1, causing the if statement to evaluate to true, And you may be chasing this error instead.

In my opinion, this is a very, very good explanation for performing such comparisons, especially in dynamically typed languages ​​like PHP and JavaScript.

Whether you agree with this approach or not, it is part of the standard and you will see it through WordPress core, themes, plugins, articles, and more.

For this reason, I highly recommend you start implementing it in your own work.

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in conclusion

As I mentioned at the beginning, this particular article is going to be simpler and more straightforward than some of the other material we've covered so far in this series.

At this point, we are left with only one major topic to discuss: database queries.

Afterwards, we'll review all the topics outlined in this series to summarize the principles we detail in our coding standards.

But first, let’s discuss database queries.

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