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Doc Bug #8476 Class documentaion request
Submitted: 2000-12-29 09:41 UTC Modified: 2001-04-07 01:48 UTC
From: bobw123 at mail dot com Assigned:
Status: Closed Package: Documentation problem
PHP Version: 4.0.2 OS: win95
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
 [2000-12-29 09:41 UTC] bobw123 at mail dot com
Hello,

Please modify the documentaion on the Class to reflect the fact that
variables set in the classes must be given a value to prevent  
the "Undefined property:somevar" warning.

var $items;  // Items in our shopping cart

should be :
var $items = "";  // Items in our shopping cart
or
var $items = array();  // Items in our shopping cart
etc.

In fact, it appears to me that the variable declaration inside classes
is just about as imporatant as variable declaration anywhere in php scripts.
You either declare them or you don't, and to a large degree it doesn't
really affect your scripts, other than the warnings.

Furthermore , without $items given an initial value, it still has to be
checked inside the function using it to prevent the warnings, for example:

!empty($this->items) ? $this->items[] .= $num : $this->items[] = $num; 

So I don't see any "fatal error" causing reason to declare vars/attributes
outside of functions/methods in Classes.

The only reason I do see for setting vars outside of functions/methods in Classes
is to give it an initial value:
var $items = "";
And therefore  one does not have to do an isset() or empty() on the var
inside a method:
$this->items[] .= $num;  // no warning on this with:  var $items = "";


So the statement made in:
http://www.zend.com/zend/tut/class-intro.php
"All of the variables used by a class must be declared before any of the
class' functions including constructors" does not hold true for the reasons
I've given above above.

Thanks,
Bob

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 [2001-03-17 00:37 UTC] jmcastagnetto@php.net
Cannot replicate behavior in RH 6.1 and Solaris 2.6, more info needed.
 [2001-03-20 11:20 UTC] bobw123 at mail dot com
jmcastagnetto,

Possibly you do not have your error reporting set to max

Bob
 [2001-04-07 01:48 UTC] danbeck@php.net
By default, error reporting is not set to the maximum value in a default PHP 4 configuration. (Or PHP 3 for that matter.)  Having a warning in the documentation about the need to set any class variables to some value before it's first use is unecessary for the majority of the people who use PHP and would most likely cause confusion instead of clarification.

As far as the statement about declaring class variables in the class intro tutorial on zend.com, it is correct.  Declaring a class variable is different than setting it to some value before it's first use.



 
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