Code question: set variable = to logic?

[qhome]

I dont really know how to explain it better, but basically i was wondering if there was some proper way to set a variable to the result of a if statement:

$blahblah = (if ($orders_history->RecordCount() > 0) {
      while (!$orders_history->EOF) {
        echo '          <tr>' . "\n" .
             '            <td class="smallText" align="center">' . zen_datetime_short($orders_history->fields['date_added']) . '</td>' . "\n" .
             '            <td class="smallText" align="center">';
        if ($orders_history->fields['customer_notified'] == '1') {
          echo zen_image(DIR_WS_ICONS . 'tick.gif', ICON_TICK) . "</td>\n";
        } else {
          echo zen_image(DIR_WS_ICONS . 'cross.gif', ICON_CROSS) . "</td>\n";
        }
        echo '            <td class="smallText">' . $orders_status_array[$orders_history->fields['orders_status_id']] . '</td>' . "\n";
        echo '            <td class="smallText">' . nl2br(zen_db_output($orders_history->fields['comments'])) . '&nbsp;</td>' . "\n" .
             '          </tr>' . "\n";
        $orders_history->MoveNext();
      }
    } else {
        echo '          <tr>' . "\n" .
             '            <td class="smallText" colspan="5">' . TEXT_NO_ORDER_HISTORY . '</td>' . "\n" .
             '          </tr>' . "\n";
    }
); 

I'd like blahblah to equal the resulting table of the logic inside of it. Obviously the way I have it shown doesn't work. but how could i get the resulting created table structure as a string for my variable?