nested if statements - a better way

Question

I have nested if statement for template selection - seems a bit cumbersome is there a better way?

{if member_group == 5 }
            {if last_segment == "edit" }
              {embed="mypassport/personal-profile-edit} 
              {if:else}
               {embed="mypassport/personal-profile-view} 
            {/if}


          {if:elseif member_group ==  6}
          {if last_segment == "edit" }
              {embed="mypassport/business-profile-edit}
              {if:else}
              {embed="mypassport/businessprofileview}
            {/if}
      {/if}

Answer 1

You're trying to use variables parsed at two different parsing stages on your code.

If there wasn't need to check member_group, you could use this:

{embed='mypassport/{if last_segment == "edit" }personal-profile-edit{if:else}personal-profile-view{/if}'}

But you can't because, while last_segment is parsed at stage 5, member_groupis parsed at stage 26, even after the embed templates. So all the embeds are being parsed all the times and then being discarded.

Let's try to improve it a little bit. Be aware that you can't to enable page caching on this or members of different groups will see each others info.

{exp:switchee variable = "global:member_group" parse="inward"}
    {case value="5"}
        {embed='mypassport/{if last_segment == "edit" }personal-profile-edit{if:else}personal-profile-view{/if}'}
    {/case}
    {case value="6"}
        {embed='mypassport/{if last_segment == "edit" }business-profile-edit{if:else}business-profile-view{/if}'}
    {/case}
{/exp:switchee}

If member_group wasn't a global variable, which needs the global prefix to be parsed early, we could test for both variables at once.

---

This is an interesting idea. I gonna suggest it to the developer of switchee, Mark Croxton.

Answer 2

It's certainly going to be more resource heavy that way, to be sure. One thing that could definitely help would be to use the early parsing conditional add-ons, switchee and ifelse to evaluate the conditionals. Your outer condition is a good spot for switch case logic, while your interior could use ifelse:

{exp:switchee variable="{member_group}" parse="inward"}
  {case value="5"}
     {exp:ifelse parse="inward"}
       {if last_segment == "edit" }
          {embed="mypassport/personal-profile-edit} 
       {if:else}
          {embed="mypassport/personal-profile-view} 
       {/if}
     {/exp:ifelse}
  {/case}
  {case value="6"}
       {if last_segment == "edit" }
          {embed="mypassport/business-profile-edit}
       {if:else}
          {embed="mypassport/businessprofileview}
       {/if}
  {/case}
{/exp:switchee}

Another alternative would be to combine some of your conditionals. Rather than evaluate the member group as a wrapper and then have conditionals inside them - since they appear to exist in exclusion of one another - you could do something like:

  {if member_group == "5" AND last_segment == "edit"}
      {embed="mypassport/personal-profile-edit}
  {if:elseif member_group == "5" and last_segment != "edit"}
      {embed="mypassport/personal-profile-view}
  {if:elseif member_group == "6" AND last_segment == "edit"}
      {embed="mypassport/business-profile-edit}
  {if:elseif member_group == "6" AND last_segment != "edit"}
      {embed="mypassport/businessprofileview}
  {if:else}
  {/if}

But I might still recommend using the ifelse add-on to ensure the conditional parses as early and efficiently as possible. Also, if you can get away without an embed and use a snippet instead, I'd recommend doing so - another efficiency gain to be realized if that's an option for you.

Hope that helps.

Answer 3

I'll demonstrate the Resource Router way of handling this.

$config['resource_router'] = array(
    'mypassport' => function ($router) {
        switch(ee()->session->userdata('group_id'))
        {
            case 5:
                $router->setTemplate('mypassport/personal-profile-view');
                break;
            case 6:
                $router->setTemplate('mypassport/business-profile-view');
                break;
            default:
                $router->redirect('login');
        }
    },
    'mypassport/edit' => function ($router) {
        switch(ee()->session->userdata('group_id'))
        {
            case 5:
                $router->setTemplate('mypassport/personal-profile-edit');
                break;
            case 6:
                $router->setTemplate('mypassport/business-profile-edit');
                break;
            default:
                $router->redirect('login');
        }
    },
);

Answer 4

If your last segment is either "edit" or "view" it would be best to do this:

  {if member_group == "5"}
      {embed="mypassport/personal-profile-{last_segment}"}
  {if:elseif member_group == "6"}
      {embed="mypassport/business-profile-{last_segment}"}
  {if:else}
      No results template
  {/if}