What Is the "-≫" PHP Operator Called

What are the PHP operators ? and : called and what do they do?

This is the conditional operator.

$x ? $y : $z

means "if $x is true, then use $y; otherwise use $z".

It also has a short form.

$x ?: $z

means "if $x is true, then use $x; otherwise use $z".

People will tell you that ?: is "the ternary operator". This is wrong. ?: is a ternary operator, which means that it has three operands. People wind up thinking its name is "the ternary operator" because it's often the only ternary operator a given language has.

What is the -> PHP operator called?

The official name is "object operator" - T_OBJECT_OPERATOR.

What is the name of this operator: “-> in php?

It is the object operator (known as T_OBJECT_OPERATOR internally).

What is the name of the :: operator?

:: is the scope resolution operator (you may sometimes find references to Paamayim Nekudotayim, hebrew for "double colon"). It is used to call static functions of a class, as in

class MyClass {
  public static function hi() {
    echo "hello, world";
  }
}
MyClass::hi();

For more details on classes and objects, refer to the official documentation.

?: operator (the 'Elvis operator') in PHP

It evaluates to the left operand if the left operand is truthy, and the right operand otherwise.

In pseudocode,

foo = bar ?: baz;

roughly resolves to

foo = bar ? bar : baz;

or

if (bar) {
    foo = bar;
} else {
    foo = baz;
}

with the difference that bar will only be evaluated once.

You can also use this to do a "self-check" of foo as demonstrated in the code example you posted:

foo = foo ?: bar;

This will assign bar to foo if foo is null or falsey, else it will leave foo unchanged.

Some more examples:

<?php
    var_dump(5 ?: 0); // 5
    var_dump(false ?: 0); // 0
    var_dump(null ?: 'foo'); // 'foo'
    var_dump(true ?: 123); // true
    var_dump('rock' ?: 'roll'); // 'rock'
?>

By the way, it's called the Elvis operator.

What does isset($x) ? $y : $z mean?

That is a Ternary Operator, also called the "conditional expression operator" (thanks Oli Charlesworth). Your code reads like:

if $x is set, use $y, if not use $z

What is the meaning of three dots (...) in PHP?

This is literally called the ... operator in PHP, but is known as the splat operator from other languages. From a 2014 LornaJane blog post on the feature:

This feature allows you to capture a variable number of arguments to a function, combined with "normal" arguments passed in if you like. It's easiest to see with an example:

function concatenate($transform, ...$strings) {
  $string = '';
  foreach($strings as $piece) {
      $string .= $piece;
  }
  return($transform($string));    }

echo concatenate("strtoupper", "I'd ", "like ", 4 + 2, " apples");

(This would print I'D LIKE 6 APPLES)

The parameters list in the function declaration has the ... operator in it, and it basically means " ... and everything else should go into $strings". You can pass 2 or more arguments into this function and the second and subsequent ones will be added to the $strings array, ready to be used.

What is the name of '->' in PHP?

I mostly call it object access operator.

EDIT: Actually, come to think of it; I usually pronounce it as "dot", since most of us here are more familiar with the dot-notation for accessing objects properties. Since it's clearly not a dot, that's probably not the answer you were looking for.

---

Related Topics