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Holly Pepper
7,551 PointsWhat will be displayed in a browser when the following PHP code is executed: - think a answer is wrong
<?php $a = "Alena"; if ($a = "Treehouse") { echo "Hello Alena, "; } echo "Welcome to Treehouse!"; ?>
8 Answers
Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse TeacherHi there! The key here lies in the fact that the if statement is using an assignment operator instead of comparison. Take a look:
<?php
$a = "Alena";
if ($a = "Treehouse") {
echo "Hello Alena, ";
}
echo "Welcome to Treehouse!";
?>
It sets $a = to "Alena", but the very next line inside the if statement, it's not asking if it's equal to "Treehouse", it's actually assigning "Treehouse" to $a. This will be successful and evaluate to true which means that the next echo will happen. At this point "Hello Alena," is echoed out. After that, we have the echo of "Welcome to Treehouse". The end result will be that "Hello Alena, Welcome to Treehouse! will be echoed out. Hope this helps!
Holly Pepper
7,551 PointsI thought the output should be: 'Welcome to Treehouse!' too, but it says the output is: Hello Alena, Welcome to Treehouse! Couldn't understand it and wasn't sure if it was me or the quiz wrong.
I have a screenshot of it, but cannot attach it. It is the 1st quiz in the 'PHP Arrays and Control Structures' course.
Alexander Alegre
14,340 PointsI just ran the code and it did output "Hello Alena, Welcome to Treehouse!" So i may have to re-watch those videos. I googled and it came across this article http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2008/01/using_the_assig.html so maybe it will help you. It's towards the top so you wont have to read a lot.
Jason Anello
Courses Plus Student 94,610 PointsThat link is about javascript and not php but it should be mostly applicable.
Alexander Alegre
14,340 PointsYou're right, it is JS. But language aside it's the same concept. Even though the languages are very different.
osman musse
75 PointsYou guys the challenge is using a assignment operation not a comparison ?
// Thats the key you coders // Go back and understand the operators they are very important // Then come back answering this Quiz Questions
Alexander Alegre
14,340 PointsWell it seems like you're assigning $a the value of Treehouse so unless there is an else statement there will be no output from the if statement. Since echo "Welcome to Treehouse!" is outside the if statement it will always display that even if the if statement is true. What are the answers from the quiz?
Holly Pepper
7,551 Pointsthank you for your help. I'll have a read of the above article :-)
Holly Pepper
7,551 Pointsthank you Jennifer, great explanation :-) - have marked best answer.
ismail celik
2,528 Pointsthanks J , so we can say everything in () after if is not condition
Jennifer Nordell
Treehouse TeacherYes, it's still a condition, but it's not checking for the same thing. In PHP when you have an assignment inside a condition, you are asking if what was assigned to the variable was a "truthy" value. The value "Treehouse" would be considered "truthy" as it doesn't fall inside what would be considered "falsey". You can find a more detailed description of truthy vs falsey in this PHP documentation. In this case, because the value being assigned is "truthy" the evaluation of the assignment results in true.
However, if it had checked against an empty string or one of the other "falsey" values, then the evaluation would have been false.
Dennis Amiel Domingo
17,813 PointsI think a simpler way of putting it would be "=" is to assign values while "==" is for comparison.
Jacqueline Floor
9,873 PointsJacqueline Floor
9,873 PointsThank you! Now I get it. The 'assigning "Treehouse" to $a' and 'this will be successful' did the trick for me.