(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)
Often you'd want to execute a statement if a certain condition is met, and a different statement if the condition is not met. This is what else
is for. else
extends an if
statement to execute a statement in case the expression in the if
statement evaluates to false
. For example, the following code would display a is greater than b if $a is greater than $b, and a is NOT greater than b otherwise:
<?php
if ($a > $b) {
echo "a is greater than b";
} else {
echo "a is NOT greater than b";
}
?>
else
statement is only executed if the if
expression evaluated to false
, and if there were any elseif
expressions - only if they evaluated to false
as well (see elseif). Note: Dangling else
In case of nested
if
-else
statements, anelse
is always associated with the nearestif
.Despite the indentation (which does not matter for PHP), the<?php
$a = false;
$b = true;
if ($a)
if ($b)
echo "b";
else
echo "c";
?>else
is associated with theif ($b)
, so the example does not produce any output. While relying on this behavior is valid, it is recommended to avoid it by using curly braces to resolve potential ambiguities.