Conditional within a string?

[tryin_to_learn]

Hi,

I'm looping through some database rows to display the content in a table. Basically, it's for some professionals who may or may not have credentials after their name. So some will be John Smith and some will be John Smith, MA. If they list credentials, I need to insert a comma before the credentials. I tried putting an if clause in my td but I'm getting an error. Is it my syntax or my logic that's wrong? Is there a better way to do this? Here's the code:

                <td>" . $row['f_name'] . " " . $row['mi'] . " " . $row['l_name'] . 
                    if ($row['credentials']) {
                        " , " . $row['credentials'];
                    }
                
                "</td> 

[Mandes]

Yes, you can do this, post a bit more code, as its hard to see your coding method you use from the bit you've given.

[markl999]

If those without credentials have a NULL (as opposed to it just being empty) in the database then you could do it via the query.

SELECT f_name, l_name, CONCAT(', ', COALESCE(credentials)) AS credentials FROM usertable

[Mandes]

Split your echo statement into two halves, and put the if in the middle, like this..

..............<td>" . $row['f_name'] . " " . $row['mi'] . " " . $row['l_name'] ; 
if ($row['credentials']) { 
    echo " , " . $row['credentials']; 
} 
echo "</td> ................. 

[Mandes]

.............. then you could do it via the query.

But only if using SQL ver > 4.1

Actually, ignore that, I'm thinking of GROUP_CONCAT, sorry

[markl999]

COALESCE() was added in MySQL 3.23.3

[Mandes]

COALESCE() was added in MySQL 3.23.3

Yeah, sorry I updated my post just as you corrected me

[markl999]

Yeah, sorry I updated my post just as you corrected me

s'k, i had to go check myself once you'd mentioned it as i had no idea when COALESCE() was introduced

[tryin_to_learn]

Excellent. I got it to work. And, for the record, I'd never even heard of COALESCE() so I learned some extra goodies.