I have a simple form which passes variables to a handler page. The handler page sets the form variables as session variables and depending on the variables sent by the form, it redirects to an apporpriate landing page. That landing page wil include some of the information set a session variable i.e. first name & surname.

Here's my question. If a user accesses the landing page directly without going via the simple form and handler - should the existance of the session information

<input type="text" name="firstname" value="<?php echo $_SESSION['firstname']; ?>">

cause an error or will the page display correctly with

<input type="text" name="firstname" value="">

I would have assumed an error to be caused and thought I should be using the isset function but during some tests I've run the above seems to be true but as I'm new to PHP I'm concerned that I've missed something.

    the variable wont exist so the value will be empty. if your error_reporting is set to show warnings. it will notify you that the variable $_SESSION['firstname'] doesn't exist. otherwise, there will be no errors.

      That's really helped me. Thanks for the reply.

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