how is this done

dman2004

Hi I'm a cold fusion developer trying to move to php.

In Cold Fusion there is a tag:

What this does is basically

if !isset(myVar){
myVar=myDefaultValue;
}

Is there a function in php that does this? other than a udf?

Thanks

laserlight

what do you mean by a "udf"?

dman2004

oops, I guess it's a cold fusion term

It means user defined function .

Like this would be a udf

 
function doCheck(){
   if !isset(myVar){ 
      myVar=myDefaultValue; 
   } 
}

But isset() is not.

So is there a function that does the same as my udf?

Thanks

laserlight

hehe, I suspected so.

No, the example you gave roughly corresponds to what you can do.
You shouldnt use it in a function, though.

dman2004

So how would I do it not "roughly"
Why not use it in a function?
Do functions need to go in the <head> of the page or can they be anywhere on the page?

Thanks

laserlight

Assume that $myVar comes from the query string.

Then

if (!isset($_GET['myVar']))
	$myVar = "default";
else
	$myVar = $_GET['myVar'];

of course, you'll probably want to format or further validate $_GET['myVar'] before assigning it to $myVar, after which you'll use $myVar

The code only applies to that variable for any given script.
As such, it isnt really re-usable.
Sure, you could use the same code for multiple scripts using the same variable name, but then PHP's variable scope rules within functions will make that inconvenient, IMO.

You can place the function declaration anywhere in the script.
PHP isnt clientside, so generally you dont have to be concerned about the layout of the clientside page, i.e. HTML.

dman2004

Thanks!