PHP Manual

PEAR Manual

Smarty Manual

PostgreSQL

MySQL Manual

Perl Manual

chapter 18. tips & tricks

blank variable handling

there may be times when you want to print a default value for an empty variable instead of printing nothing, such as printing " " so that table backgrounds work properly. many would use an {if} statement to handle this, but there is a shorthand way with smarty, using the default variable modifier.

example 18-1. printing   when a variable is empty

{* the long way *}  {if $title eq ""}      {else}    {$title} {/if}   {* the short way *}  {$title|default:" "}

see also default and default variable handling.