Question

I am using PHP to layout a navigation menu and display content according to the URL.

I have reached the IF-ELSE stack that determines what content to show (by loading the necessary classes and/or methods). But there has to be a better way of writing this.. any suggestions?

BreadCrumbs::getCrumb() is a static method used to retrieve an element saved from the URL based on the index value (URI Request, split by ‘/’, then saved in array).

…(ArrayHelp::recValueSearch(BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(2), Config::getNavPrimary()) checks the URI element against the array containing the navigation list from the Config class.

BreadCrumbs::setEmptyCrumb(1, “home”) runs a method which sets a default value if the value is either not present or not valid (in the nav list array)

<?php
// set bread crumbs
BreadCrumbs::setCrumbs($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']);
BreadCrumbs::setEmptyCrumb(1, "home");
BreadCrumbs::setEmptyCrumb(2, "all");



if (BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(1) == 'about') {
    echo 'This is the <b>About</b> Page';
}
else if (BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(1) == 'contact') {
    echo 'This is the <b>Contact</b> Page';
}
else if (BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(1) == 'search') {
    echo 'This is the <b>Search</b> Page';
}
else if (BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(1) == 'home') {
    if (BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(2) == 'all') {
        echo 'This is the <b>Home</b> Page';
    }
    else if (ArrayHelp::recValueSearch(BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(2), Config::getNavSecondary())) {
        echo 'This is the list page for category: <b>' . BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(1) . '</b> and the country filter is: <b>'. BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(2) . '</b>';
    }
    else {
        echo 'change filter value and go to the <b>home</b> page';
    }
}
else if (ArrayHelp::recValueSearch(BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(1), Config::getNavPrimary())) {
    if (BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(2) == 'all') {
        echo 'This is the list page for category: <b>' . BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(1) . '</b> and the country filter is <b>all countries</b>';
    }
    else if (ArrayHelp::recValueSearch(BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(2), Config::getNavSecondary())) {
        echo 'This is the list page for category: <b>' . BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(1) . '</b> and the country filter is: <b>'. BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(2) . '</b>';
    }
    else {
        echo 'change filter value to all and go to category: <b>' . BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(1) . '</b>';
    }
}
else {
    echo 'redirect page to home/all';
}

?>

EDIT: Changed to Switch Statement as below, a little better..

    <?php
    $array_helper = new ArrayHelp;
    $valid_primary = $array_helper->recValueReturn(BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(1), Config::getNavPrimary());
    $valid_secondary = $array_helper->recValueReturn(BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(2), Config::getNavSecondary());
    switch (BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(1)) {
        case 'about' :
        case 'contact' :
        case 'search' :
            echo 'This is the <b>' . BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(1) . '</b> Page';
            break;
        case 'home' :
            switch (BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(2)) {
                case 'all' :
                    echo 'This is the <b>Home</b> Page';
                    break;
                case ($valid_secondary[1]) : 
                    echo 'This is the list page for category: <b>' . BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(1) . '</b> and the country filter is: <b>'. BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(2) . '</b>';
                    break;
                default:
                    echo 'change filter value and go to the <b>' . BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(1) . '</b> page';
                    break;
            }
            break;
        case ($valid_primary[1]) :
            switch (BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(2)) {
                case ($valid_secondary[1]) : 
                    echo 'This is the list page for category: <b>' . BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(1) . '</b> and the country filter is: <b>'. BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(2) . '</b>';
                    break;
                default:
                    echo 'change filter value and go to the <b>' . BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(1) . '</b> page';
                    break;
            }
            break;
        default:
            echo 'redirect page to home/all';
            break;
    }
?>

Answer 1

If your example code shows your complete requirements some of it could be greatly simplified by just using the actual string returned by getCrumb:

  $crumb = ucfirst(BreadCrumbs::getCrumb(1));
  switch($crumb){

     case 'home': case 'foobar': # etc, etc
        echo "This is the <b>$crumb</b> Page";
        break; # or add some extra logic
     default:
        # handle invalid crumbs here
        break;
  }

(ucfirst is used to make the first character of the string uppercase.)