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PHP Build a Simple PHP Application Adding a Contact Form Working with Get Variables

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Posted by jhdsfjhdfs hjkhkjkhj
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At 3:20 Randy used the comparison operator AND. I used the ampersands &&. Which is better?

I've always used && ampersands, I've never seen AND. I was wondering what team treehouse's professional opinion on this is.

2 Answers

Ricardo Hill-Henry
Ricardo Hill-Henry
38,442 Points

Chris Southam I do believe there's the possibility false assignment when using AND as opposed to &&. AND has a lower precedence than &&. So, when having a conditional 

<?php $x && $y || $z; ?>
<?php $x AND $y || $z; ?>

In the latter, we're actually executing x and (y or z) since || has a higher precedence then AND.

Now you may say, why not just swap || with OR. Well here's another example of this failing

<?php 
  $x = true;
  $y = false;
  $seekingTheTruth = $x and $y;
?>

In this example we can expect the value to return true. This is because the equal operator has higher precedence: ($seekingTheTruth = $x) and $y;

http://php.net/manual/en/language.operators.php

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$seekingTheTruth = $x && $y;

returns TRUE, which is what I favor. Thanks Mr. Cuckoo

Chris Southam
Chris Southam
1,823 Points
Chris Southam
Chris Southam
1,823 Points

Either, or - which ever you find easier to read as long as you are consistent in your code.
&& makes a lot of sense for AND but || is a little harder to understand for OR. You need to use both consistently, so choose a version and stick to it!

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Thanks Chris. I'm going to stick with the &&, || operators. Just needed a second opinion.