How can I add a condition inside a php array?

Question

Here is the array

$anArray = array(
   \"theFirstItem\" => \"a first item\",
   if(True){
     \"conditionalItem\" => \"it may appear base on the condi         


        

Answer 1

Unfortunately that's not possible at all.

If having the item but with a NULL value is ok, use this:

$anArray = array(
   "theFirstItem" => "a first item",
   "conditionalItem" => $condition ? "it may appear base on the condition" : NULL,
   "theLastItem"  => "the last item"
);

Otherwise you have to do it like that:

$anArray = array(
   "theFirstItem" => "a first item",
   "theLastItem"  => "the last item"
);

if($condition) {
   $anArray['conditionalItem'] = "it may appear base on the condition";
}

If the order matters, it'll be even uglier:

$anArray = array("theFirstItem" => "a first item");
if($condition) {
   $anArray['conditionalItem'] = "it may appear base on the condition";
}
$anArray['theLastItem'] = "the last item";

You could make this a little bit more readable though:

$anArray = array();
$anArray['theFirstItem'] = "a first item";
if($condition) {
   $anArray['conditionalItem'] = "it may appear base on the condition";
}
$anArray['theLastItem'] = "the last item";

Answer 2

There's not any magic to help here. The best you can do is this:

$anArray = array("theFirstItem" => "a first item");
if (true) {
    $anArray["conditionalItem"] = "it may appear base on the condition";
}
$anArray["theLastItem"]  = "the last item";

If you don't care specifically about the order of the items, it gets a little more bearable:

$anArray = array(
    "theFirstItem" => "a first item",
    "theLastItem"  => "the last item"
);
if (true) {
    $anArray["conditionalItem"] = "it may appear base on the condition";
}

Or, if the order does matter and the conditional items are more than a couple, you can do this which could be considered more readable:

$anArray = array(
    "theFirstItem" => "a first item",
    "conditionalItem" => "it may appear base on the condition",
    "theLastItem"  => "the last item",
);

if (!true) {
    unset($anArray["conditionalItem"]);
}

// Unset any other conditional items here