Question

I have a function “isValid” that is responsible for searching for spaces in all variables provided. I want the function to return true if none of the variables contain spaces. Would this be the right approach?

return !(strpos($this->email, " ") || strpos($this->confirm_password1, " ") || strpos($this->handle, " ") || strpos($this->phone, " "));

Answer 1

In order for it to be easily maintainable I would do something like the following:

public function isValid()
{
    $properties = array(
        'email',
        'confirm_password1',
        'handle',
        'phone',
    );

    foreach ($properties as $property) {
        if ($this->containsSpace($property)) {
            return false;
        }
    }

    return true;
}

private function containsSpace($property)
{
    return !(strpos($this->$property, '') === false);
}

Note the === false as check for strpos(). Demo: http://codepad.viper-7.com/0ZgNZq.

Note that this only checks for spaces and not possible other whitespace characters. If you want to check for other whitespace characters I would suggest to use a simple regex:

private function containsSpace($property)
{
    return (bool)preg_match('/\s/', $this->$property);
}

And finally if you really want to do it your original way I would do something like:

public function isValid()
{
    return strpos($this->email, " ") === false && strpos($this->confirm_password1, " ") === false && strpos($this->handle, " ") === false && strpos($this->phone, " ") === false;
}