[RESOLVED] Why is my else echo not working?

bluewax

Hi Folks

Total newbie here!

I wrote this script to test out collecting keywords from url and I am not sure why the else echo does work. It is fine why i add a keyword to the url, but when there is no keyword it wont echo "no keyword".

Any help appreciated, as I have spent a couple of hours trying to find what is wrong.

Thanks

Tony😕

bradgrafelman

What script? :p

bluewax

bluewax;10968780 wrote:
Hi Folks

Total newbie here!

I wrote this script to test out collecting keywords from url and I am not sure why the else echo does work. It is fine why i add a keyword to the url, but when there is no keyword it wont echo "no keyword".

Any help appreciated, as I have spent a couple of hours trying to find what is wrong.

Thanks

Tony😕

Da I left the script out!!!

<?php

 $subid = urlencode($_GET['keywords']); 


  if(isset($subid)){
  echo $subid;
} else {
  echo "No Keyword";
}


?>

bradgrafelman

When posting PHP code, please use the board's [noparse]

..

[/noparse] bbcode tags as they make your code much easier to read and analyze. Also, welcome to PHPBuilder!

As for your issue, your if() statement doesn't make much sense. You're testing to see if a variable is defined, and yet you just defined it a couple of lines before the if() statement. In other words, you might as well be testing to see if 1 + 2 == 3.

bluewax

Thanks Bradgrafelman

I have half sorted it out. Just get undefined index:keywords line 16 when testing with no keyword?
Otherwise it echo's what I wanted.

<?php

 $subid = urlencode($_GET['keywords']); 


 echo empty($subid)? "No Keyword":
 $subid;



?>

Pikachu2000

Now you don't check to see if it's set before you attempt to access it.

<?php
$subid = urlencode($_GET['keywords']);
echo ( isset($subid) && !empty($subid) ) ? $subid : "No Keyword";
?>

bluewax

Thanks Pikachu200

Great help! I will probably have some more questions later the more I play with php.

Cheers
Tony

bradgrafelman

Pikachu2000;10968802 wrote:
Now you don't check to see if it's set before you attempt to access it.
<?php
$subid = urlencode($_GET['keywords']);
echo ( isset($subid) && !empty($subid) ) ? $subid : "No Keyword";
?>

That code will still generate "undefined index" errors if $_GET['keywords'] isn't defined.

In a nutshell: you should never attempt to access external variables without first checking to see if they exist. In other words, you should rewrite the above code to first test that $_GET['keywords'] exists before attempting to access it (e.g. urlencode() it and/or echo it).

Pikachu2000

Yeah, it sure will. I guess I fired that out a bit too quickly.

<?php
$subid = ( isset($_GET['keywords']) && !empty($_GET['keywords']) ) ? urlencode($_GET['keywords']) : '';
echo ( isset($subid) && !empty($subid) ) ? $subid : "No Keyword";
?>

bradgrafelman

Unless there's a lot more code and we're only looking at a sample code snippet, you could rewrite the above as:

if(!empty($_GET['keywords']) {
  echo urlencode($_GET['keywords']);
} else {
  echo "No Keyword";
}

Even if there is more code, there are some simplifications to the above, namely:

$subid = (isset($_GET['keywords']) ? urlencode($_GET['keywords']) : '');
echo ($subid != '' ? $subid : "No Keyword";

since:

Using isset() isn't necessary when using [man]empty/man (the latter takes care of the former), and
There's no point in calling [man]isset/man on $subid since we know it will always be set, and
If $subid was equal to '0', [man]empty/man returns true (which might not be desirable if '0' is a valid value).

bluewax

Thanks for the help guys.
You have both helped me understand php code a little more.

Cheers🙂