Repeating if/elseif within a foreach loop (PHP)

Question

I have a series of if/elseif conditional statements using the same structure and syntax, and I'd like to clean up and condense the code within a foreach to more easily add and remove items as the list grows. What I'm starting with looks something like this:

if ( $condition1 == 1 && ( $condition2 == 1 || $condition3 == 1 ) ) {
  $var = 'string 1';
} elseif ( $condition1 == 2 && ( $condition2 == 2 || $condition3 == 2 ) ) {
  $var = 'string 2';
} elseif ( $condition1 == 3 && ( $condition2 == 3 || $condition3 == 3 ) ) {
  $var = 'string 3';
} elseif ( $condition1 == 4 && ( $condition2 == 4 || $condition3 == 4 ) ) {
  $var = 'string 4';
} else {
  $var = 'default string';
}

Ideally, I would structure this more like:

$conditions = array(
  'string 1'    => 1,
  'string 2'    => 2,
  'string 3'    => 3,
  'string 4'    => 4,
);
foreach ( $conditions as $key => $value ) {
  if ( $condition1 == $value && ( $condition2 == $value || $condition3 == $value ) )
    $var = $key;
}
if ( empty($var) )
  $var = 'default string';

The biggest issue here is that I want all if statements after the first iteration to be elseif to in case multiple conditions are met so I can control the hierarchy by the order of the items in the array. Also, this approach may be totally wrong and there could be a much better way to approach the problem altogether, so I'm open to any and all critique!

ishegg · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-07 14:39:44Z

2

You can rearrange the code a bit to do what you need. break out of the loop if a condition is met ("simulating" the elseif conditions), and place the default before the loop, so, if no condition is met, the value will be that one:

$conditions = array(
  'string 1'    => 1,
  'string 2'    => 2,
  'string 3'    => 3,
  'string 4'    => 4,
);
$var = 'default string';
foreach ( $conditions as $key => $value ) {
  if ( $condition1 == $value && ( $condition2 == $value || $condition3 == $value ) ) {
    $var = $key;
    break;
  }
}

answered Sep 7, 2017 at 14:39

ishegg

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5 Comments

ishegg Over a year ago

Looks like I misunderstood. You don’t need only one condition met? If two are met, so you want to have two values for $var?

Chance Strickland Over a year ago

Sorry about that, I deleted my comment but you read too fast. :) Your solution appears to work perfectly for what I need. Appreciate it!

ishegg Over a year ago

Are you sure? This will indeed stop execution after meeting a condition (I though that's what you wanted). But re-reading your question, you seem to need more than one condition meet.

Chance Strickland Over a year ago

I only need one condition to be met to define the variable once, so this is good for me.

ishegg Over a year ago

Great! I was a bit confused, since it seems like you can't meet multiple conditions? Because of the left hand side of the && operation (only can have one value)

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