Code works in 4.0.6, problems in 4.1.1

davidfromttu

Well, this is my first post here - I am pretty much a newbie, but understand most of the basic things. My webhost runs PHP v.4.0.6 (and Apache), and so I have written my code on my W2K desktop testing also with 4.0.6 (and Apache). My code works just fine on my desktop. However, I have started testing on another computer with 4.1.1 (have not tried PHP 4.1.2 yet) and I get an undefined variable error. I can not even reproduce this error on my desktop here. Here is a look at the first page... (dont think I am an MSIE freak when you see the code, I had HTML errors with because of frames...)

<?php
require ('functions.inc');
if(strstr($HTTP_USER_AGENT,"MSIE"))
{
require_once ('index.inc');
frames( $page_title, $meta_tags, $side_frame, $main_frame, $bottom_frame, $side_bottom, $page_contents, $no_Frames );
}
else
{
require_once ('home.inc');
page_header( $page_title, $meta_tags, $jvscrpt, $bckgrnd );
page_body( $page_contents );
echo " 
 
<center><h3>Please be aware, that this page currently works best on MS Internet Explorer 5.0 and better.</h3></center>
 ";
bottom( $mailto_address );
page_footer();
}
?>

I had problems on MSIE 5.5 and on Netscape 4.75. They brought up 2 different pages of course, but they both had errors. Netscape at least brought up the background color, but brought an undefined variable for "$jvscrpt". The funtions are defined in functions are defined in functions.inc, background info is in background.inc required in functions.inc, and home.inc is the include file for home.php which is the main frame defined under $main_frame.

Does anyone have any ideas?

dannys

In PHP4.1.1+ the register global vars has been turned off and the error reporting has been turned up to report undeclared variables.

You could just turn those options back down in your config file but it's probably best to fix your code as these options are rumored to be getting removed from the next major PHP release.

To fix your code you'll need to get any global vars from the $GET, $POST and $_SERVER arrays (use a var_dump() or print_r() on each to se what they contain if you're unsure)

For example, your code should read

if(strstr($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'],"MSIE"))

To fix any undeclared variable errors, simple make sure that any variables you use have been declared first (simply assigning is enough to declare).

In situations where you can't tell if a variable has been declared (when querying POST vars, for example) use isset() first;

For example,

if (isset($_POST['submit']))
{
// Process form data
}
else
{
// Display form
}

HTH