coalesce & coalescy

Two "coalescy" php functions to used while waiting for the ?? operator :

• coalesce : simple null coalesce function for PHP
• coalescy : like coalesce, but returns the first not falsy value.

And two functions to get a potentially undefined element without throwing E_NOTICE

• val : returns an array element or null if the index is undefined
• prop : returns an object property or null if the index is undefined

Installation

composer require coalesce/coalesce

Usage

$arr = [ 'foo' => 4, 'bar' => '' ];

// coalesce
coalesce($arr); // returns $arr
coalesce(false, $arr['foo']); // returns false
coalesce($arr['bar']); // returns ''
coalesce(null, '0', 42); // returns '0'
coalesce($arr['foobar']); // returns null (caution: this will throw a notice)
coalesce(0, $arr); // returns 0

// coalescy
coalescy($arr); // returns $arr
coalescy(false, $arr['foo']); // returns 4
coalescy($arr['bar']); // returns null
coalescy(null, '0', 42); // returns 42
coalescy($arr['foobar']); // returns null (caution: this will throw a notice)
coalescy(0, $arr); // returns $arr

// To avoid notices, you can use val :
val($arr, 'bar'); // returns '' ($arr['bar'])
val($arr, 'foobar'); // returns null (without throwing a notice)