Setting a default

Anon

This one probably has some simple solution, but could somebody PLEASE help??! It's driving me crazy... I'm trying to check for existence of a variable, and if it's not found, set it to something... This is the code I WAS using, at the start of the page:

if (!$variable)
{
$variable = value;
}

and it worked FINE, but ever since I formatted my PC, got a new version of PHP, the exact same code keeps spewing warnings at me, even with an old page... Says it's undefined, which seems a bit paranoid, since that's what I'm trying to find out. Anyone know a way 'round?

thx

Anon

First, the warnings are due to the level of reporting in your php.ini. check out the manual.
BTW, this is not paranoid, but sanity. If you don't initialize a variable, the variable could theoretically contain anything at all. If you decide for example to erase a file if a variable contains FALSE, and your variable gets a startup value of FALSE from PHP, then the file gets erased....
Basically you don't ever want to use any variable that you did not first assign a value to.
(Except when you are assigning a value to it ofcourse)

Second, check out the manual for the isset() function.
this checks to see if the variable has had a value assigned to it or not.

Anon

In your case, MF, the ini is what you want to change.

I believe a good understanding of default values is a better solution than isset. isset() is ok, but makes for messy code in my opinion. I prefer to check for NOT on my variables. Also, unless you're very careless (and that's easy to do with php), declaring your vars in php isn't necessary.

To check for null or empty string, or 0 or not set, use if(!$var)
to check for null, use is_null($var)

Most languages require you to declare your variables, but I love php because you don't need to.

Tom

Anon

Excellent, thanks!

Did the INI, all working nicely now. The version I had before must've just had that set by default. I agree though, I always loved not needing to declare everything, can make life so much simpler.

Thanks again,