PHP conditionals, brackets needed?

Question

I was just browsing a forum and someone asked about a PHP file they had found on the web. It has several spots like this in the code:

if ($REMOTE_ADDR == \"\"

Answer 1

In my opinion

if ($REMOTE_ADDR == "") $ip = "no ip"; else $ip = getHostByAddr($REMOTE_ADDR);

is valid, but much harder to read than:

if ($REMOTE_ADDR == "") {
    $ip = "no ip"; 
} else {
    $ip = getHostByAddr($REMOTE_ADDR);
}