Question

A couple questions here..

1. What is the following syntax?

2. What do all the pieces mean?

   (( ! is_array($data)) ? $data : '')
   

3. How is it used in the function at the end?

   function form_input($data = '', $value = '', $extra = '')
   {
       $defaults = array('type' => 'text', 'name' => (( ! is_array($data)) ? $data : ''), 'value' => $value);
       return "<input "._parse_form_attributes($data, $defaults).$extra." />";
   }
   

Thankyou. Blake

Answer 1

Ok let me try as far as I understand you question.

What is the following syntax?

It is a function definition.

What do all the pieces mean?

This is the ternary operator. It means: If $data is not an array (!is_array($data)), return $data (? $data) otherwise return an empty string (: '')

It is a shorthand for if-else.

How is it used in the function at the end?

Not sure what you mean here. A function _parse_form_attributes($data, $defaults) is called witch seems to return a string.

If it in your question refers to $defaults, then it is just an array that gets build and that contains the following values:

Array (
    'type' => 'text',
    'name' => $data, // or empty string if $data is an array,
    'value' => $value
);

It is used to build an input element, that will look like this:

<input type="text" 
       name="(value of $data or empty)" 
       value="(value of $value)"
       (value of $extra)
       />