notice: Undefined index: mode in server_header.php

pressure

I've recently taken over a server that ran a website, however, the website gives the above errors in a couple spots. The line it references says
if ($REQUEST['mode'])
$mode = $REQUEST['mode'];

I didn't do the scripting for this, but I'm not sure how to resolve this. This is an IIS server, using myssql, everything looks to be installed properly.

I also get the same message on the case server line below

switch ($mode){
case server:

And again the same message for below line in servers.php
if($_REQUEST['select'] != NULL){

Any help would be appreciated.

cahva

It will give you notices because the variable has not been set before. Proper way to determine if variable is set is:

if (isset($_REQUEST['mode']))
    $mode = $_REQUEST['mode'];

The other one you first check if its set and then if its not null:

if (isset($_REQUEST['select']) && !is_null($_REQUEST['select'])) {

pressure

Another Undefined INDEX on line **

What causes Undefined indexes? How do I create an index and have it defined?

			if($engineer_last[$i] == $_REQUEST['select']) // If someone just selected an engineer, show that engineer

(or should I just rtfm?)

cahva

If theres lots of those problems, maybe you should just turn the notices off(lower the error reporting level). This can be done in php.ini.

In most languages you cannot use variables that have not been declared. In PHP its possible and theres tons of old scripts out there that havent declared variables. This is mainly because in the bad old days it was common that hosts had error reporting level so low that it only displayed/logged fatal errors, not notices.

Thiswould spit a notice because $foo is not declared anywhere.

<?php
echo $foo;
?>

This works as it should. First check if the variable exists and if not, give it a value.

<?php
if (!isset($foo)) {
   $foo = 'bar';
}

echo $foo;
?>

bradgrafelman

cahva wrote:
If theres lots of those problems, maybe you should just turn the notices off

Eh, but that's a bit like clasping your hands over your eyes and shouting "I CAN'T SEE YOU!" at the problem though, isn't it? :p

I would highly suggest going through the notices and fixing up the code so it's not quite as sloppily-written as it was in previous times. You'll probably note that most of the things you're "fixing" are request variables (e.g. variables created from POST'ed data or parsed from the query string).

Whenever you use a request variable, you should first consider the case where that variable wasn't sent by the user, so code like this:

$username = $_POST['username'];

should instead be written like this:

$username = (isset($_POST['username']) ? $_POST['username'] : '');

cahva

Eh, but that's a bit like clasping your hands over your eyes and shouting "I CAN'T SEE YOU!" at the problem though, isn't it?

I didnt mean that he shouldnt fix the probs. I just meant that notices can be turned off for the time being and fix the code in development server.

bradgrafelman

Well PHP error messages should never be displayed to the user on a production server, so I assumed that you meant he should ignore the log entries.