working with PHP on an NT server

sfullman

Hi,

I am working with php (4.2 or more recent) on an NT server and have already noticed that things are different than my own Linux box. For example, if I say:

echo $somevalue;

I'll get this "notice":

Notice: Undefined variable: somevalue in E:\home\vip\bais\wwwroot\index.php on line 16

Do you seriously have to declare every variable at the head of the page? That stinks! In Linux installations, you'd just get nothing, not a notice like that.

If there's anything I can set in php.ini file to stop this, please let me know. Also, are there any good URL's on this on the net? Thank you for responding.

Sam Fullman

DeltaRho2K

Your Linux php installation has the global registers on, while the NT is off. This is off by default on the newer version of php for security purposes.

Find the php.ini file, and look for the global registers, and turn it on.

Or, at the beginning of your pages, you can add:

extract($HTTP_GET_VARS);

and this will extract all of the variables from your URL.

(This topic is all over several message boards including this one)

stolzyboy

what he said, and likely more up-to-date would be

extract($_POST)

or you can just do

$variable = $_POST['variable']

whichever make more sense to you

sfullman

You're right -- the extract() issue IS all over,

but I was asking about

echo $undeclaredvariable;

not about get variables. There are times when I want to print a variable that may or may not be there, and if it isn't I expect to just get blank, not a notice. So that question is unanswered. I believe it has to do with error reporting levels --- after all this is a notice not a warning.

Does anyone understand my question and have an answer?

Sincerely,
Sam Fullman

stolzyboy

not sure but here is a link to the manual for error_reporting

http://www.php.net/error_reporting

mystrymaster

I am running on a windows 2000 box and if I call a variable that has not been defined I do not get any errors. I do however have register globals on in my ini file. Not sure if that will make a difference.

On a seperate note - it is a good idea to declare all variables anyway just to get used to doing it as most other languages require this and I imagine one day PHP will also.

DeltaRho2K

Not trying to sound redundant here, so read on until the end. I am just clarifying my original point.

The "$undeclared variable" you are referring to is due to your register globals being off on the NT installation. Edit the php.ini to enable it, and from then on, you won't have that issue,

or -

use the extract($HTTP_GET_VARS) command.

In other words, using your example:

Undefined variable: somevalue in E:\home\vip\bais\wwwroot\index.php?somevalue=123

It sounds as though you are using some sort of query "SELECT * from yadda WHERE somevalue = $somevalue"

That being the case, if the global registers are off, the URL won't get parsed, and you won't be able to strip off the variable.

Above your SELECT query, add the command:

extract($HTTP_GET_VARS);

This will define your variables, and return $somevalue = 123

Then your query will understand it, and will pull everything from yadda where somevalue = 123.

If there are no variables defined, then obviously you won't get any results...

To stop the error, you will probably have to use some sort of If/Then statement to determine if the variable exists or not. In other words,
If exists($somevalue) then
run query
Else
don't run query

Although, I am not sure why you would want to run a query with user defined variables, if they don't exist anyhow...

(Obviously, I am not too concerned with perfect syntax here, since you already know what's going on here...)