PHP IF [FALSE / NULL / EMPTY]功能

Question

Since a year or so I had a function in all my projects called: ifNot().

This function is somehow a derivated from the ternary operator:

public function ifNot( $item, $ifNot )
{
    if ( !$item ) {
        return $ifNot
    } else {
        return $item;
    }
}
// The var $foo twice
$var = ( $foo ) ? $foo : 'is empty or false =(';
// The var $foo once
$var = ifNot($foo, 'is empty or false =(');

In fact, Twig Template Engine use something like it:

{{ foo ? 'yes' : 'no' }}

{# as of Twig 1.12.0 #}
{{ foo ?: 'no' }} == {{ foo ? foo : 'no' }}
{{ foo ? 'yes' }} == {{ foo ? 'yes' : '' }}

The question is: There is a better/known approach for this function?

PS: SQL also has an IFNULL() =)

Answer 1

Your function is essentially equivalent to a variant of the conditional operator that was added in PHP 5.3:

Since PHP 5.3, it is possible to leave out the middle part of the ternary operator. Expression expr1 ?: expr3 returns expr1 if expr1 evaluates to TRUE, and expr3 otherwise.

It may be a tiny bit faster to use the built-in approach if all your target environments are PHP 5.3 or greater, but I wouldn't really worry about it.