Posted by Curtis on 01/02/06 10:20

Occasionally I encounter this style of coding, where the
coder is apparently religiously opposed to outputting HTML
with PHP. The result is very difficult to read:

<?php
global $user;
if ($user->uid) {?> <li><a href="logout" title="">Log
Out</a></li>
<?php } else {?> <li><a href="user/login" title="">Log
In</a></li>
<?php }?>

Ten characters in order to type that closing brace? Wow.

What's the thinking behind this style, and what's wrong with
the following?

<?php
global $user;
if ($user->uid)
{
print '<li><a href="logout" title="">Log Out</a></li>';
}
else


print '<li><a href="user/login" title="">Log
In</a></li>';
}
?>

.... assuming one wanted to keep the braces, and didn't want
to escape quotes.

While I'm on the subject, I note that a lot of PHP coders do
the opening braces like so:

<?php
if ($something) {
do this();
} else

dothat();
}
?>


I don't find this as readable/maintainable as lining up
opening and closing braces the same way I would line up

begin
begin
end
end

in Pascal--especially when things get nested three or four
levels deep.

--

Curtis

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