if

if

The construct is one of the most important features of many languages, PHP included. It allows for conditional execution of code fragments. PHP features an structure that is similar to that of C:

`if``if````php if (expr) statement

  As described in ,  is evaluated to its
  Boolean value.  If  evaluates to true,
  PHP will execute , and if it evaluates
  to false - it'll ignore it. More information about what values evaluate
  to false can be found in the 
  section.
 the section about
  expressions'Converting to boolean'


  The following example would display  if  is bigger
  than :
  
 `$a``$b````php
<?php
if ($a > $b)
  echo "a is bigger than b";
?>

Often you'd want to have more than one statement to be executed conditionally. Of course, there's no need to wrap each statement with an clause. Instead, you can group several statements into a statement group. For example, this code would display if is bigger than , and would then assign the value of into :

`if$a$b$a$b````php

   statements can be nested infinitely within other
   statements, which provides you with complete
  flexibility for conditional execution of the various parts of your
  program.
 `If``if`