Well, if you assume ternary operations work the same in PHP as in c and attempted to write the code demoed by this meme. You would end up with unexpected behavior. Maybe I should have said unexpected behavior instead of unsafe behavior.
PHP is the only language in existence with a left associative ternary operator. Ignoring PHP, the operator has worked exactly the same way for decades. And even PHP has now fixed the operator.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to avoid a very commonly supported pattern just because a single badly designed language implemented it wrong.
Okay, even if I give you the unexpected behavior point. The readability problem remains. Switch statements or tables will work just fine and are easier to read.
To be clear, I am fine with single ternary operations. I think nested ternary operations are harder to read and follow.
There is usually a safer and more readable way to do what you want to do by chaining ternaries in most languages.
How is it unsafe?
Well, if you assume ternary operations work the same in PHP as in c and attempted to write the code demoed by this meme. You would end up with unexpected behavior. Maybe I should have said unexpected behavior instead of unsafe behavior.
PHP is the only language in existence with a left associative ternary operator. Ignoring PHP, the operator has worked exactly the same way for decades. And even PHP has now fixed the operator.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to avoid a very commonly supported pattern just because a single badly designed language implemented it wrong.
Okay, even if I give you the unexpected behavior point. The readability problem remains. Switch statements or tables will work just fine and are easier to read.
To be clear, I am fine with single ternary operations. I think nested ternary operations are harder to read and follow.