By Chris Gillis on

Can anyone tell me why most themes are using this:

<?php if ($page == 0): ?>
  <h2><a href="<?php print $node_url ?>" title="<?php print $title ?>"><?php print $title ?></a></h2>
<?php endif; ?>

instead of this:

<?php if ($page == 0) { ?>
  <h2><a href="<?php print $node_url ?>" title="<?php print $title ?>"><?php print $title ?></a></h2>
<?php } ?>

Is this just the third-party developer's personal preference, or is this style encouraged by the Drupal community?
Your thoughts...

-Chris

⋅ Categories: Drupal 5.x

Comments

test127’s picture

test127 commented

It's probably just easier to read. At least for me, it's far easier while scanning for my eyes to pick out "endif" than to spot "}". Also, it may be a little easier to pick up on the meaning of it for some of the non-programmer users.

Chris Gillis’s picture

Chris Gillis commented

In case anyone is interested, from: www.drupal.org/node/318

You are strongly encouraged to always use curly braces even in situations where they are technically optional.

heine’s picture

heine commented

The technically optional refers to the equivalence of

if ($foo)
  bar();
baz();

// Better:
if ($foo) {
  bar();
}
baz();

The alternative block syntax is simply much easier to read in the tagsoup that are themes. Perhaps we can create a special theme section in the code style guidelines.

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AdrianB’s picture

AdrianB commented

I was wondering the same thing myself. I can see the readability argument but an argument for using curly braces would be that editors like BBEdit can balance the braces and check if they're unmatched, which is a big advantage sometimes.

I tried to find any official guidance here on drupal.org, but this article was the closest I could get.