calling link variables - a better way?

[datadriven]

The following works as it is, hyphenating with lower case.
There may or may not be a state variable on the page.

<?php $city="Cerro Gordo"; 
$state="IL"; ?>
 
<a href="location-<? echo strtolower(str_replace(" ", "-", $city)); if ($state !=''){echo strtolower("-".$state);} ?>.php">CityState</a>

gives:
location-cerro-gordo-il.php

But something tells me there is a better way of forming this, rather than the seperate second condition. (these links are being placed on many areas and pages throughout the site)

[thirteenlisk]

First, I would avoid the ugliness of doing this in HTML. Second, I tried sticking the intended formatted value into a temporary variable. This seemed a lot cleaner.

<?php
$city="Cerro Gordo"; 
$state="IL";
$formatted_loc = strtolower(str_replace(" ", "-", $city));
if ($state !='')
{
    $formatted_loc .= strtolower("-".$state);
}
echo '<a href="location-' . $formatted_loc . '.php">CityState</a>';
?>

[datadriven]

If I can back up for a moment (only this snippet, please)

While this works on a testing page by itself:

<a href="location-<? echo strtolower(str_replace(" ", "-", $city)); if ($state !=''){echo strtolower("-".$state);} ?>.php">CityState</a>

When I insert as equal to a variable from another page (includes file)this is already working, to which I am trying to add the hyphenated state:

<a href="location-'.strtolower(str_replace(" ", "-", $city)).'.php">CityState</a> 

But when I append the hyphenated state, it doesn't go, why? Tried with and without the echos,displacing the ending colon, etc

<a href="location-'.strtolower(str_replace(" ", "-", $city))  if($state !=''){strtolower("-".$state);}.'.php">Citystate</a> 

NOTE: I'm trying to check for the existence of the state variable before appending it.

[datadriven]

note that isset not seeming to work:

<a href="location-''.strtolower(str_replace(" ", "-", $city)).''.if (isset($state)){strtolower("-".$state);}.'.php">Citystate</a>

[SKDevelopment]

note that isset not seeming to work:

<a href="location-''.strtolower(str_replace(" ", "-", $city)).''.if (isset($state)){strtolower("-".$state);}.'.php">Citystate</a>

It does not work because you forgot "<?php" and "?>" round your PHP code. I think you meant something like this (not checked):

<a href="location-<?php echo strtolower(str_replace(" ", "-", $city)); if(isset($state)){ echo strtolower("-".$state);} echo '.php';?>">Citystate</a>

[datadriven]

that doesn't do it. with or without the php tags and echos

this does work,

 <a href="location-'.strtolower(str_replace(" ", "-", $city)).''.(strtolower("-".$state)).'.php">Citystate</a> 

the problem arises when the condition of checking on $state is added
(remember the above is set as a variable and being called on another page)

is there another way to eliminate the trailing hyphen when $state does not exist?

Only other thing I can think of is to save a seperate $state values as ''-IL''
I am using this to seperate values of states having the same city names
There are less -- and these are minor exceptions -- so I'll do it this way.

Much appreciate the help.