Shorten Your Ifs

Here’s a PHP example for shortening your conditionals and parameter checking. (There is probably a design pattern for this, but I haven’t found a name for it yet. Submit a comment if you know the name.)

This is a typical PHP example.

/* A useful function.

@param $arg1 First parameter.
@param $arg2 An optional array.

@return Returns a useful string.

*/
public function doSomethingUseful($arg1,$arg2=array())
{
    if (isset($arg2))
    {
        foreach ($arg2 as $v) { /* ... */ }
    }
    else
    {
        return '';
    }
}

Here’s a way to shorten and simplify.

/* A useful function.

@param $arg1 First parameter.
@param $arg2 An optional array.

@return Returns a useful string.

*/
public function doSomethingUseful($arg1,$arg2=NULL)
{
    if (is_array($arg2)) { return ''; }
    foreach ($arg2 as $v)
    {
        /* ... */
    }
}