Posted by Marek Kilimajer on 02/12/05 15:03

Jacco Ermers wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> I recently installed php5 onto my windows IIS. Previous I had php running on
> Apache. I coded a page (testing purposes) but now I get errors. the page can
> be viewed on a remote server (without the errors) http://seabird.jmtech.ca
>
> Locally I receive these errors:
>
> Undefined index: section in
> C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\Seabird-local\includes\submenu.php on line 3
>
> if($_GET['section']=='') etc.
> It used to be that I could use a section == ''
> is it new to php5 that I cannot? and I also used to be able to use
> $_GET[section] and now I have to use $_GET['section']
>
> did I overlook anything configuring my php.ini or is this due to my new
> enviroment?
>
> Thank you for helping
>

This is due to different setting in error reporting, now you have also
E_NOTICE turned on.

if($_GET['section']=='')

should be coded as:

if(empty($_GET['section']))

If GET variable 'section' is not sent, it is not equal to '', it does
not even exists, is undefined. Using it triggers error of level E_NOTICE.

If you write

$_GET[section]

php is looking for constant named 'section'. However, it does not
exists, so an error of level E_NOTICE is triggered. Undefined constant
is then converted to string with its name. So you get $_GET['section']
in the end.

It's a good practice have full error reporting turned on, since this
will help you spot errors and write safer code.

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