php $_GET and undefined index

Error reporting will have not included notices on the previous server which is why you haven't seen the errors.

You should be checking whether the index s actually exists in the $_GET array before attempting to use it.

Something like this would be suffice:

if (isset($_GET['s'])) {
    if ($_GET['s'] == 'jwshxnsyllabus')
        echo "<body onload=\"loadSyllabi('syllabus', '../syllabi/jwshxnporsyllabus.xml',         '../bibliographies/jwshxnbibliography_')\">";
    else if ($_GET['s'] == 'aquinas')
        echo "<body onload=\"loadSyllabi('syllabus', '../syllabi/AquinasSyllabus.xml')\">"; 
    else if ($_GET['s'] == 'POP2')
        echo "<body onload=\"loadSyllabi('POP2')\">";
} else {
    echo "<body>";
}

It may be beneficial (if you plan on adding more cases) to use a switch statement to make your code more readable.

switch ((isset($_GET['s']) ? $_GET['s'] : '')) {
    case 'jwshxnsyllabus':
        echo "<body onload=\"loadSyllabi('syllabus', '../syllabi/jwshxnporsyllabus.xml',         '../bibliographies/jwshxnbibliography_')\">";
        break;
    case 'aquinas':
        echo "<body onload=\"loadSyllabi('syllabus', '../syllabi/AquinasSyllabus.xml')\">";
        break;
    case 'POP2':
        echo "<body onload=\"loadSyllabi('POP2')\">";
        break;
    default:
        echo "<body>";
        break;
}

EDIT: BTW, the first set of code I wrote mimics what yours is meant to do in it's entirety. Is the expected outcome of an unexpected value in ?s= meant to output no <body> tag or was this an oversight? Note that the switch will fix this by always defaulting to <body>.


Get into the habit of checking if a variable is available with isset, e.g.

if (isset($_GET['s']))
{
     //do stuff that requires 's'
}
else
{
     //do stuff that doesn't need 's'
}

You could disable notice reporting, but dealing them is good hygiene, and can allow you to spot problems you might otherwise miss.


I always use a utility function/class for reading from the $_GET and $_POST arrays to avoid having to always check the index exists... Something like this will do the trick.

class Input {
function get($name) {
    return isset($_GET[$name]) ? $_GET[$name] : null;
}

function post($name) {
    return isset($_POST[$name]) ? $_POST[$name] : null;
}

function get_post($name) {
    return $this->get($name) ? $this->get($name) : $this->post($name);
}
}
$input = new Input;
$page = $input->get_post('page');

Tags:

Php

Undefined

Recent Posts