Do I really need to declare properties in classes?

[bunner_bob]

I was just wondering how important it is to declare a property when I'm going to be assigning it a value later. E.g.:

class Foo
{
    var $bar;

function Foo()
{
    $this->bar = (something);
}
}

If I leave out the "var $bar;" it all seems to work the same, I get no error complaints (not even notices). But "they" tell us we're supposed to do it - why?

• Bob

[rgermain]

I haven't had to deal much with classes, but I would have to say that is just good programming practice. If you don't define a variable and just pull one out of no where, it makes it harder for other people to see what you are doing when reading your code. Also, harder for you when you haven't looked at the code for several weeks and then come back to change it.