if

The if construct is one of the most important features of many languages, PHP included. It allows for conditional execution of code fragments. PHP features an if structure that is similar to that of C:

if (expr)
  statement

As described in the section about expressions, <expression> is evaluated to its Boolean value. If <expression> evaluates to ENTITY, PHP will execute <statement>, and if it evaluates to ENTITY - it'll ignore it. More information about what values evaluate to ENTITY can be found in the 'Converting to boolean' section.

The following example would display a is bigger than b if $a is bigger than $b:

<?php
$a = 3;
$b = 1;
if ($a > $b)
  echo "a is bigger than b\n";

   

a is bigger than b

Often you'd want to have more than one statement to be executed conditionally. Of course, there's no need to wrap each statement with an if clause. Instead, you can group several statements into a statement group. For example, this code would display a is bigger than b if $a is bigger than $b, and would then assign the value of $a into $b:

<?php
$a = 3;
$b = 1;
if ($a > $b) {
  echo "a is bigger than b\n";
  $b = $a;
}
var_dump($b);

   

a is bigger than b
int(3)

If statements can be nested infinitely within other if statements, which provides you with complete flexibility for conditional execution of the various parts of your program.