IF-Else: Ternary and Null Safe Operators

When building applications, performing comparisons is very common. Recent PHP versions improved the good old "if-else" with a few shorter syntax options.

Ternary Operator: "? ... :"

The ternary operator is used to shorten the if/else.

Instead of writing this:

if (request()->has('customer_id')) {
    return request()->get('customer_id');
} else {
    return null;
}

You can write this:

request()->has('customer_id') ? request()->get('customer_id') : null

This ternary operator can be shortened using the "Elvis" "?:" operator.

request()->get('customer_id') ?: null

In this case, the returned value will be from the request or null.

Null coalescing: "??"

The null coalescing operator has been...