php quickie...

Anon

When I use this in a script:
$uploadfile = (string) $HTTP_POST_VARS["uploadfile"];

I get:
Warning: Undefined index: uploadfile in c:\inetpub\wwwroot\upload.php on line 2

It still all works but could somone please tell me why it gives me that message.

Thanks,
Matt

Anon

Even though it appears to work, you might try running:

<?PHP
print_r( $HTTP_POST_VARS );
?>

before you get that error and make sure that something is actually being posted for "uploadfile". It's possible that there is a mispelling, or that you should be using "uploadfile_name" or some variation.

Good luck!

--Robert

Anon

I was using
$HTTP_POST_VARS["upload"] == "Upload data"

To see if the form has been submitted, this works but php says

Warning: Undefined index: upload in c:\inetpub\apache\upload.php on line 3
3: if ($HTTP_POST_VARS["upload"] == "Upload data") {

Or if I use
$upload == "Upload data"

To see if the form has been submitted, this works but php says

Warning: Undefined variable: upload in c:\inetpub\apache\upload.php on line 3

3: if ($upload == "Upload data") {

Should I just turn the warnings off, beacuse they seem to be useless?

[deleted]

A warning is never useless.
What you are doing is looking at the value of a variable.
But, the variable has never had a value assigned to it. That means that the variable does not have to be empty at all, it could contain any random value. So checking if the var is empty is not a reliable way of checking wether the variable was set.

Anon

Hi, thnx for your reply, but I dont see why php says

Warning: Undefined index: text in c:\inetpub\apache\form.php on line 3

When I do
$text = (string) $HTTP_GET_VARS["text"];

Is their a reason for this?

[deleted]

It's PHP letting you know that $HTTP_GET_VARS[] does not have an element called "text".

Same as testing an unassigned var.

Anon

yeh but its a bit pointless isn't it?

I can see the point of telling you about unassigned pagevars but not form/cookie/session vars, Is there anyway you can turn it off/on in the current script so it can just be used just for development/debugging?

[deleted]

Nothing pointless about it.
PHP graciously makes each new variable empty, but that's a service.
If you reference a variable you are basically accessing a piece of computer memory. If you don't clear that memory, or fill it with a value, you don't know what is in there, so in theory, if you say echo $somevar you could be making PHP echo a bunch of EOF and other exotic chars that can make your computer crash bigtime.

Also, checking for the existance of a var just by checking if it's works in PHP, but it's not a valid way to do it, because as in the above example, an unassigned var could contain anything, so it could contain "1", and F'up your program.