CI 3.1.11, PHP 7.4, url_helper Critical Error

Hello. I've been running CI 3.0.6 with PHP 5.6 and 7.2 for years with no problems.



I had to upgrade my PHP version to 7.4 due to my ISP. The site now has the error below:




Message:  Unparenthesized `a ? b : c ? d : e` is deprecated. Use either `(a ? b : c) ? d : e` or `a ? b : (c ? d : e)`


Filename: helpers/url_helper.php

Line Number: 162



I cannot upgrade to CI 4.x at this time. So I upgraded to 3.1.11.



The offending code is:

PHP Code:

$site_url = is_array($uri)
 ? site_url($uri)
: (preg_match('#^(\w+:)?//#i', $uri) ? $uri : site_url($uri)); 


Since I don't get a valid url everything is messed up. (No CSS, etc.)



Frankly I don't use PHP enough to know how to convert the is_array() to make use of the parens that PHP 7.4 now wants. Searching came up dry for me.



Any help would be deeply appreciated.  Thank you.