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I think these are all extremely common shortcuts that are often used to even improve readability. I would be a little worried if a programmer didn't know at least 6/7 of these.

Good post. I agree with every point except the braces. Leaving them out is very common source of errors when code gets added/modified or commented out.

Nice list, but be careful with short-hand print statements, short tags are often disabled and therefore don't work on all PHP hosts.

Agreed

They do fall under the basics but most people miss those ones

You do have a point, also PHP lists that option PHP_INI_PERDIR so ini_set(..) can't help.

I am not sure but I think you could get away with this

<?php=$string?>

I'll have to check that.

Sorry that hint about brackets and short tags, ie <?=$string?> inhibits readability of the code which makes maintaining the code base a major pain. Also you should always be using strict comparisons, ie === or !== in your code anyway for two reasons. It avoids coding errors by explicitly checking for data type comparisons and 2, it makes your code run faster because there is no type switching when the comparison is made.

I agree, you do have a valid point regarding the === and !==

However, for the short tags, I still think it's alright to do.. Especially in files where all that you're doing is displaying templates, CodeIgniter suggests that you use them in the views: http://codeigniter.com/user_guide/general/alterna…

Code readability, maintainability and coding standard are more important then saving a few keyboard punches. You listed most of what is often abused in code.

I've always thought the way most people write braces was wasteful so instead of
if ($something !== $somethingelse)
{
print $something;
}
else
{
print $somethingelse;
};
I always use
if ($something !== $somethingelse) {
print $something;
} else {
print $somethingelse;
};
I've used that in my own project since the start and everyone that has ever commented have said the code was extremely easy to read and understand vs most other code they've seen. It also has the advantage of not wasting a bunch of space so more code is visible while still allowing adding more lines without causing errors. Most good editors have option to highlight the matching braces when coding so there is no need to have them on a line by themselves just so you can visually match them up yourself.

I tend to agree with you about the braces – ternary operators are handy but for handling if/else I always use braces or recently I use if():: endif; especially when I'm wrapping my if/else decision around a loop, switch or with more if/else's

$int++; or ++$int;
$int–; or –$int;
This way is faster.

No it's not. Don't ever use short print tags, it's really bad programming style, and most if not all of the major developers of the PHP language will agree with that. Leaving out braces results in logical errors when you add debug statements to your code because you invariably forget to add the braces at that time. 25 years of programming has taught me to always use block delimiters

Indeed, Andrew

this are pretty common shortcuts and most should already be noted. Props to for combining them all in one neat area of information

i have to dissagre with you, PHP is not weak-typed language and I really think people should learn to enjoy that or to simply change the language they use, rather than trying to turn PHP into something it's not. IMHO, with your suggestion we have 2 situations, and I believe neither is better than simply using ==. We can have 2 different types, in which case we need to make the type casting manually first, before comparison. Not just that it's overhead, but it's very easy to forget to do the casting, and being weak-typed language, php will not warn us about that, which will break the logic in a really hard to find way. Also it's not faster either as you need to do the type casting manually, anyway. And then we have the other situation that both variables are of the same type, when it really doesn't matter how you write it, but again I think == is safer in the case of future changes that could break the code. Well just my $0.02

The one line if statement and the shorthand for echo are both bad practices. Do not do either of them. The if statement becomes less readable and requires more typing if you need to edit it later on. The shorthand php only works if it’s set up to work so your code could break on some servers

thanks a lot.
useful article

If the point is cut out the unnecessary, what I think is somewhat problematic in the case of conditionals without braces, you can ommit the parentheses on using the ternary operator, also my favorite.

Some interesting tips on using PHP comments more effectively here: http://forrst.com/posts/How_I_comment_my_PHP_code…

I love the Ternary Operator, although never ever nest them, it will kill your brain!

What a piece of crap! Instead of teaching good coding practices, this article does the opposite…

HI,

I m lakmey .PHP can do any thing that u cant't thiks

I don't think it's a good idea to have short tagsi.e. <?=$string?> while coding the big reason for that is its dependency on the ini setting for short open tag. Also i had read somewhere that it could be deprecated sometime in future??

I don't think it's a good idea to have short tagsi.e. <?=$string?> while coding the big reason for that is its dependency on the ini setting for short open tag. Also i had read somewhere that it could be deprecated sometime in future??