PHP variable declaration shorthand (similar to JavaScript) - php

Question

In JavaScript, I can do this:
var somevar = {
propertyTwo : false,
propertyThree : "hello!"
}
var test = somevar.propertyOne || somevar.propertyTwo || somevar.propertyThree
alert(test); //displays "hello!"
Is there a similar functionality in PHP for this?
Haven't been able to find anything online.
I tried this, but PHP just treats it like a comparison and echo's 1 (true)
$somevar = array(
'propertyTwo' => false,
'propertyThree' => "hello!"
);
$test = $somevar['propertyOne'] || $somevar['propertyTwo'] || $somevar['propertyThree'];
echo $test; //displays '1'
Not really a big deal if there isn't, but I figured that with all of the bells and whistles provided in php 5.x, there would be some kind of shorthand for assigning the first true value in a list of values to a single variable like that.
I suppose I could write a function.
EDIT :
As I suspected, PHP doesn't have the same quirk.
Quick function I wrote
function assign_list($list){
foreach($list as $v)
if(isset($v) && $v) return $v;
return false;
}
Just pass it an array of stuff

Answer 1

The following will work in PHP >= 5.3, but you will still receive a Notice Error because propertyOne is not defined.
<?php
$somevar = array(
'propertyTwo' => false,
'propertyThree' => "hello!"
);
$test = $somevar['propertyOne'] ?: $somevar['propertyTwo'] ?: $somevar['propertyThree'];
echo $test; //displays 'hello!'
You could however work around this by supressing the variables, but it is highly unrecommended:
$test = #$somevar['propertyOne'] ?: #$somevar['propertyTwo'] ?: #$somevar['propertyThree'];

Answer 2

This doesn't work in PHP, and here's why:
$somevar['propertyOne'] = false;
$somevar['propertyTwo'] = true;
$test = $somevar['propertyOne'] || $somevar['propertyTwo'];
Imagine typing that query into an if statement:
if( $somevar['propertyOne'] || $somevar['propertyTwo'] ){ ... }
This will return true (evaluates to 1) if either variable is true.
Now, if we make all of the variables = false:
$somevar['propertyOne'] = false;
$somevar['propertyTwo'] = false;
$test = $somevar['propertyOne'] || $somevar['propertyTwo'];
The variable returns false (evaluates to 0).
Another thing we can do is:
$somevar['propertyOne'] = true;
$somevar['propertyTwo'] = true;
$test = $somevar['propertyOne'] && $somevar['propertyTwo'];
This will return true (evaluates to 1) as both variables meet the criteria.
This means that we can do things like this in PHP though:
$test = $somevar['propertyOne'] || $somevar['propertyTwo'];
if($test){ ... }
TL,DR: In PHP you are storing the result of the expression into a variable, not doing any validation on anything.