Colon used in IF statement instead of '{' - why?

[hmichaels]

Hi everyone,

I'm analysing some open source applications to increase my understanding of OOP. Right now I'm analysing Wordpress, and I've come across a few strange coding styles... for example the following:

if (! isset($wp_did_header)):
if ( !file_exists( dirname(__FILE__) . '/wp-config.php') ) {
	if (strpos($_SERVER['PHP_SELF'], 'wp-admin') !== false) $path = '';
	else $path = 'wp-admin/';

	require_once( dirname(__FILE__) . '/wp-includes/classes.php');
	require_once( dirname(__FILE__) . '/wp-includes/functions.php');
	require_once( dirname(__FILE__) . '/wp-includes/plugin.php');
	wp_die("There doesn't seem to be a <code>wp-config.php</code> file. I need this before we can get started. Need more help? <a href='http://codex.wordpress.org/Editing_wp-config.php'>We got it</a>. You can <a href='{$path}setup-config.php'>create a <code>wp-config.php</code> file through a web interface</a>, but this doesn't work for all server setups. The safest way is to manually create the file.", "WordPress &rsaquo; Error");
}

Can anybody explain why a colon ':' was used in the initial IF statement rather than curly brackets?

It's trivial, but I can't seem to find an answer on Google.

Thanks!

[rjm1982]

Its just style...thats a wierd use of it(if thats the whole bit of code)

In that example, neither a { or a : is needed as the if statement only does 1 thing...

But, i use them when i writing a conditional in html/php mixed, compare the two..

<? if(true) { ?>
   <div>stuff</div>
<? } ?>

// vs.

<? if(true) : ?>
   <div>stuff</div>
<? endif; ?>

It just seems a little more readable that way...but to use it in regular code, not mixed with output, it is wierd...

[php_daemon]

Alternative syntax for control structures

[hmichaels]

Thanks!