Question

I know this is basic boolean logic, but I’m stuck:

I am looping through database results, and for each one I need to check for the following condition:

if($old_value != $new_value)

If the above is true, the action is:

$old_value = $new_value;

But there is a secondary condition. If the row is of type “date”, I need to also check that $new_value is not empty, but the action is still the same. Right now, I am doing it like this:

if($old_value != $new_value) {
     if($type != date) {
         $old_value = $new_value;
     } elseif(!empty($new_value)) {
         $old_value = $new_value;
     }

I’ve oversimplified the above, but really that one-line action is actually several lines that I know I don’t need to repeat based on the secondary condition.

But I’m at a loss on what the right way to combine the inner condition with the outer condition. If I do something like:

if(($old_value != $new_value) && ($type == 'date' && !empty($new_value))

Then the only time it would return true is when the row is of type date.

Answer 1

Try:

  if(($old_value != $new_value) && ($type != 'date' || !empty($new_value))

That should do it. Let me know if you need help understanding why.