Question

can anybody tell me the difference of using ‘===’ as

if (null === $this->getName())

and

if ($this->getName() === null )

if $this->getName is already defined.

thanks in advance

Answer 1

There is no difference between the two conditionals, however, it is a common practice to place the value you are checking first, so you don’t accidentally turn a conditional check into an assignment operation:

// Conditional
if ($this->getName() === null )

// Assignment
if ($myName = null )

// Avoids the confusion of either the above
if (null === $this->getName())

You can also use the is_null PHP function for testing if variables are null.