PHP 4.3.11 - undefined constant variable errors

lisabee

I just installed PHP version 4.3.11 onto one of my development computers running Apache 1.3.28. I ran a client's web site that uses php heavily and found that errors occured when it encountered the $_POST variable syntax that was used in previous php versions. Example:

$_POST[reload] (without the apostrophe ' surrounding the name 'reload') now creates the following error....

Notice: Use of undefined constant reload - assumed 'reload' in ...

I assumed I had to go through my code and now change all the $POST variable to a different syntax using the apostrophy...ie $POST['reload']. So I began the task and it works fine in the newer version; however, when I run the same code using the older version of php the $_POST variables lose their information.

I am in a quandry because all of my client's that use $_POST in their scripts are working fine but I am afraid as soon as the servers they are running on upgrade to version 4.3.11 the scripts will suddenly begin to display error messages everywhere. I cannot begin making modifications to correct the syntax because the scripts will then not run correctly with the current versions of php.

Does anyone know of a configuration in the php.ini that can be set to enable the use of the $_POST variables without the apostrophe? I have tried a few (register_globals=On and magic_quotes_gpc = Off) but have not been able to eliminate the error message (although the script seems to run OK).

Thanks,

Lisa😕

LordShryku

There's no configuration specifically for that since they should be quoted. You can however workaround it and configure your error_reporting to supress to not display those messages. It should be okay since it does assume the quotations, but if you ever do have a defined constant using the same name as the key, it'll use the constant. Anyway, I think those are reported as E_NOTICE errors, so just remove that from the reported error types.

[edit]
The manual has a pretty good explanation of all this under the array "do's and don'ts"

lisabee

Thanks for the info. but I am curious. If it was always supposed to be quoted, then why do all the php books list sample code without the quotes AND when I go to add the quotes to the $_POST variables then the information does not get 'posted' when the script is run under the older version of php?

For example;

I have a script that has form entries for name and email. The information is posted to another script that places them into an email format and sends the email. The code looks like:

$email = "$POST[name] just submitted a new record. Their email address is $POST[email]";

$email looks like this:

"Sally Jones just submitted a new record. Their email address is sallyj@msn.com"

When I go change the $_POST code to include the quotes then the information is lost and $email looks like:

"just submitted a new record. Their email address is"

I tested this just yesterday on an existing client using a version of php prior to 4.3.11.

Any ideas why this is occuring?

Lisa

LordShryku

It's odd that it works without the quotes. Superglobals should not be parsed within a string....

This would be one way it should work though:

$email = $_POST['name'].' just submitted a new record. Their email address is '.$_POST['email'];

Using . you concatenate the variables to the string. I've never used brackets, but you can use them ({}) around your variable in the string to tell it to parse also.

As for the books, they were written by people just like you or me who have adopted their way of writing php. No book, unless written by the php creators, can really be considered the "right way" to do things. A lot of books you see wouldn't even tell you to use $_POST since they assume register_globals is on.

lisabee

Thanks again for replying so quickly. I looked at your example and reset a line of code in one of my client's scripts to read:

$mailheaders = "From: " . $_POST['name'] . " /  ". $_POST['company'] ."<" . $_POST['email'] . "> \n";

It worked without an error and the correct information made it to the email! I have used the string concatination (.) before but didn't realize it was so necessary with superglobals.

Thank you so much.

BTW - it's so disappointing when you buy a book from a well-known company and find the information is incorrect. In my case I was using a SAMS Teach Yourself book for PHP & MySQL. Now I will begin the arduous task of 'fixing' the code for all my clients.

Lisa