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You know how, in JavaScript, we can set a value to a variable if one doesn't, like this:

name = name || 'joe';

This is quite common and very helpful. Another option is to do:

name || (name = 'joe');

Well, in PHP, that doesn't work. What many do is:

if ( empty($name) ) $name = 'joe';

Which works...but it's a bit verbose. My preference, at least for checking for empty strings, is:

$name = $name ?: 'joe';

What's your preference for setting values if they don't already exist?