Why am I getting "undefined index" error here?

bunner_bob

I'm running a loop as part of an ecommerce system, which loops through each item of a certain type and modifies info prior to inserting in a database. These are magazine subscriptions - here's the content of the loop:

$sub['quantity'] = 1;

if ($sub['country'] == 'US')
{
	$region = 'USA';
}
elseif ($sub['country'] == 'CA' || $sub['country'] == 'MX')
{
	$region = 'Canada/Mexico';
}
else
{
	$region = 'International';
}

$p = new db_Products;
$p->setWhere("type='subscription' AND term=" . $sub['term'] . " AND region='" . $region . "'");
if ($p->getCount() > 0)
{
	$p_array = $p->getData();
	$sub['productId'] = $p_array[0]['productId'];
}

$sub['subscriptionInfo'] = $sub;

$this->processedItems[] = $sub;

Whenever this runs, I get "undefined variable: sub" at the next-to-last line ($sub['subscriptionInfo'] = $sub😉

Clearly $sub is NOT undefined. In fact even if it was an empty array to start with, I am explicitly giving it "quantity" and "region" elements during the loop.

Also, this error only started about a month ago. It's possible the hosting company made some change in their version of PHP - that's out of my control.

Is it not kosher to copy an array into an element of itself? It's not by reference, so shouldn't be any kind of infinite loop - the element should just be a copy of the array up to the point of the operation. Is it possible there is some PHP update or change that would cause this?

laserlight

Running this code in PHP 5.2.6:

<?php
$sub['quantity'] = 1;

$sub['subscriptionInfo'] = $sub;

print_r($sub);
?>

gives me:

Array
(
    [quantity] => 1
    [subscriptionInfo] => Array
        (
            [quantity] => 1
        )

)

Consequently, I cannot duplicate your problem. What is your version of PHP? Perhaps you would like to post more code, particularly from the first point where $sub is referenced.

NogDog

Seems odd, though, that you'd assign an entire array to one element of that same array. Is that really your intention?

bunner_bob

It is my intention, though I need to dig back into the code to figure out why I did it. Can probably come up with another way though.

Laserlight - here's the full function. Not much more to illuminate the issue...

private function preProcessSubscriptions($subscriptions)
{
	foreach ($subscriptions as $sub)
	{
		$sub['quantity'] = 1;

	if ($sub['country'] == 'US')
	{
		$region = 'USA';
	}
	elseif ($sub['country'] == 'CA' || $sub['country'] == 'MX')
	{
		$region = 'Canada/Mexico';
	}
	else
	{
		$region = 'International';
	}

	$p = new db_Products;
	$p->setWhere("type='subscription' AND term=" . $sub['term'] . " AND region='" . $region . "'");
	if ($p->getCount() > 0)
	{
		$p_array = $p->getData();
		$sub['productId'] = $p_array[0]['productId'];
	}

	$sub['subscriptionInfo'] = $sub;

	$this->processedItems[] = $sub;
}
}

Seems to me that if ANY subscriptions are passed to this function, even if completely empty, once I have assigned a couple of values then there's no way I could get an undefined variable error.

I was mistaken in my original post - region is not an element of $sub, but quantity is.

laserlight

Seems to me that if ANY subscriptions are passed to this function, even if completely empty, once I have assigned a couple of values then there's no way I could get an undefined variable error.

Actually, $sub is explicitly defined at the start of the foreach loop. It seems to me that the warning is impossible, unless due to a bug with the PHP interpreter.

What is the warning message? You mentioned "undefined index" in the topic, but talked about "undefined variable" in the original post.

bunner_bob

It's "undefined variable" - sorry for the confusion.