IF Statement Inside Function - php

Question

I am writing a if statement that if the two dates listed are equal it echo's the first date and if the they aren't(else statement) it echoes "date1-date2" I have it inside a function and I do not know if I am alowed to do that.Here is the error I am getting
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_IF
Here is my function:
function getfevent ($conn) {
$sql = "SELECT `name` FROM `event` WHERE `featured` = 0 LIMIT 0, 30 ";
$statement=$conn->prepare($sql);
$statement->execute();
while($row=$statement->fetch()) {
$eventname = $row['name'];
$row_id=geteventid ($conn,$eventname);
$row_end=geteventend ($conn,$eventname);
$date=if ($row_id == $row_end){
echo $row_id;
}
else {
echo $row_id " - " $row_end;
}
?>
<?php echo "<td>$eventname</td><td>$date</td></tr>"; ?>
<?php
}
}
getfevent($conn);

Answer 1

Probably you want this.
$date = $row_id == $row_end ? $row_id : $row_id . " - " . $row_end;
echo $date;
Don't forget. Use . to concat.
It's the same of
if ($row_id == $row_end) {
$date = $row_id;
} else {
$date = $row_id . " - " . $row_end;
}

Answer 2

Yes, of course If statements are allowed inside functions. Your problem is that you are setting your variable $date's value to the value of a T_IF, which is illegal.
Rather, you could do something like this:
$date=($row_id == $row_end);
if($date)
{
echo $row_id;
}
else {
echo $row_id." - ".$row_end;
}

Answer 3

Instead of:
$date=if ($row_id == $row_end){
echo $row_id;
}
else {
echo $row_id " - " $row_end;
}
Try:
$date;
if ($row_id == $row_end)
$date=$row_id;
else
$date=$row_id." - ".$row_end;
What you're doing in the original code is essentially telling PHP to set the value of variable $date to an if statement, which is, well, not possible.
The alternate piece of code creates a new variable $date, and then sets its value to $row_id or $row_id." - ".$row_end; depending on how the if statement evaluates.

Answer 4

The echo statement is used to print something to the output buffer.
you have to do this instead:
if ($row_id == $row_end) {
$date = something
} else {
$date = somethingElse
}
//do whatever you want with $date

Answer 5

try
$date=$row_id;
if ($row_id != $row_end)
{
$date.=" - ".$row_end;
}
which should be much shorter i gues