25 Aug 09 PHP Programming Tutorial: If Statements

PHP If Statements are the beginning of logical operators and are a very important part of programming. They allow you to create code that only runs if certain conditions are true. The basic format of an If Statement looks like this:

if (condition) {
php statements
}

Let’s create a basic example.

<?php
if (2 > 1) {
echo "True!";
}
?>

This works because 2 is in fact greater than 1. If we switch it around, we see that nothing happens:

<?php
if (1 > 2) {
echo "True!";
}
?>

PHP looks at this, checks the condition, sees that 1 is not greater than 2, and so ignores the echo statement.

Here’s a more practical example. Let’s say you’re using PHP’s date function to grab the month from the server and store it in the $month variable. Perhaps you want to give a special message to your visitors at certain times:

<?php
if ($month == "December") { // If the $month equals December, proceed.
    echo "Happy Holidays!"; // Wish our visitors a happy holiday season!
}
?>

If Statements are very powerful and they are used a lot. But what if you want something to happen by default if your If Statement condition is not met? Let’s take a look at that now with PHP Else and Elseif Statements.

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Tags: if, php, programming, statements, tutorial