What is the dot in the smarty variable?

Question

PHP

I have a smarty variable {topicrow.TOPIC_TITLE}
How can I check its value?
{if $topicrow['TOPIC_TITLE'] == '123'} {/if} doesn't work.
What's the point?

Answer 1

Smarty has very detailed documentation. Even in Russian there is:
www.smarty.net/docsv2/ru/language.function.if.tpl
In general, I sincerely recommend you not to use smarts in general and third-party template engines in particular.
PHP itself is a great fast templating engine. Why introduce another entity here, I sincerely do not understand.