Posted by Erwin Moller on 10/11/05 12:05

Michael Jack wrote:

> Hi,
>
> in the program below, what is the meaning/use of
> the question mark (?gcd) and the colon (:$a) after the return statement?
> Any explanation will be appreciated.

Hi Michael,

It is just a shorthand notation for an if-then-else statement

eg:
$a = 10;
echo ( ($a<20) ? "$a is smaller then 20!" : "$a is not smaller then 20!");

is the same as:
$a = 10;
if ($a<20) {
echo "$a is smaller then 20!";
} else {
echo "$a is not smaller then 20!";
}

Regards,
Erwin Moller


>
> <?
> $x=32;
> $y=80;
> function gcd($a, $b)
> { return ($b>0)?gcd($b,$a%$b):$a;}
> $val=gcd($x, $y);
> print "The greatest common denominator of $x and $y is $val";
> ?>
>
> This recursive program is used to find the greatest common denominator of
> 2 numbers.
>
> TIA

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