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PHP7 also brings us some new operators. The first one we’re going to explore is the spaceship operator. With a name like that, who doesn’t want to use it? The Null Coalesce Operator, is effectively the fabled if-set-or. It will return the left operand if it is not NULL, otherwise it will return the right.
| Example | Name | Result |
|---|---|---|
| $a == $b | Equal |
TRUE if $a is equal to $b after type juggling. |
| $a === $b | Identical |
TRUE if $a is equal to $b, and they are of the same
type.
|
| $a != $b | Not equal |
TRUE if $a is not equal to $b after type juggling. |
| $a <> $b | Not equal |
TRUE if $a is not equal to $b after type juggling. |
| $a !== $b | Not identical |
TRUE if $a is not equal to $b, or they are not of the same
type.
|
| $a < $b | Less than |
TRUE if $a is strictly less than $b. |
| $a > $b | Greater than |
TRUE if $a is strictly greater than $b. |
| $a <= $b | Less than or equal to |
TRUE if $a is less than or equal to $b. |
| $a >= $b | Greater than or equal to |
TRUE if $a is greater than or equal to $b. |
| $a <=> $b | Spaceship | An integer less than, equal to, or greater than zero when $a is respectively less than, equal to, or greater than $b. Available as of PHP 7. |
| $a ?? $b ?? $c | Null coalescing |
The first operand from left to right that exists and is not NULL.
NULL if no values are defined and not NULL. Available as of PHP 7.
|
Documentation
Comparison Operators
Spaceship Operator RFC
Null Coalesce Operator RFC
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PHP7 also brings us some new operators.
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The first one we're going to explore is the space ship operator.
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With a name like that, who doesn't want to use it?
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The space ship operator, or combined comparison operator, is a nice addition
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to the language, complementing the greater than and the less than operators.
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The spaceship operator is put together using three individual operators
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less than, equal and greater than.
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Essentially what it does is check each operator individually.
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First, less than.
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If the value of the left is less than a value on the right.
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The Spaceship Operator will return minus 1.
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If not,
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it will move to test if the value on the left is equal to the value on the right.
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If so, it will return 0.
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If not, it will move to the final test,
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if the value on the left is greater than the value on the right.
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Which if the other two haven't passed this one must be true and it will return 1.
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The most common uses for this operator is in sorting.
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Another new operator the null coalesce operator is effectively the fabled if,
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set, or.
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It will return the left operand if it is not null.
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Otherwise it will return the right.
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The important thing is that it will not raise unnoticed if the left operand
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is a nonexistence variable.
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For example,
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name equals the variable first name double question marks the string Guest.
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If the variable first name is Seth and it is not null.
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It will assign that value to the variable name or
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else it will assign Guest to the variable name.
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Before PHP7, you could write something like this.
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If not empty first name, name equals first name else name equals Guest.
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What makes this even more powerful, is that you can stack these.
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This operation will check each item from left to right.
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And when it finds one that is not null, it will use that value.
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This operator looks explicitly for null, or does not exist.
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It will pick up an empty string.
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