undefined variable message

[spdwrench]

when I turned errors on in one of my php pages I got this error..

 

but the page still works fine..

 

I never had to declare a variable in php... why is it telling me I have an undefined?

 

I thought they were defined when you define them?

 

just wierd

 

Paul

[Wuhtzu]

Some code please?

[Neptunus Maris]

Whatcha talkin about... hos?

 

 

yes... show a code snippet

[spdwrench]

<?php
$nauth=0;
$nauth=$sAuth;
?>

 

undefined line 3

 

$sAuth is a variable that comes from another part of the site into the phpbb system

 

it works fine just wondering why says undefined? I thought it did not matter in php?

 

Paul

[spdwrench]

I dont know alot about sessions

all I know is that sAuth allows me to determine which member is logged in to my system it reflects the member ID # on my site

 

 

[Neptunus Maris]

At login set a session or cookie

 

 

in this case you mentioned cookies

 

setcookie("nameofcookie", "valueofcookie", time()+3600, "/", "yoursite.com", 1);

 

name of the cookie maybe be "users"

 

value could be under a field like "auth_lvl" ranging from 1-3 1 being a super admin and then down the line

 

do this in secure areas

 

if (!isset($_COOKIE['users'])) {

  header(); // send them somewhere else

  exit;

}

 

then to check auth_lvl

 

if ($_COOKIE['users'] != 1) {

  die("Unauthorized");

}

 

but $_SESSIONS are bettter to use

[Wuhtzu]

As you said earlier, the page still works - so in that sense it does not matter. All it tells you is that you have used some bad coding practice... take this example:

 

script.php

<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);

$id = $_GET['id'];

echo $id;
?>

 

If I call the script.php without the ID get argument PHP will throw a notice saying that I have an undefined index... all this means is that $_GET['id'] does not exist even though I'm using it. The end result is of course that $id will hold the value '' and nothing will be printed to the screen... fine. But it would be good practice to test for the existence of $_GET['id'] before using it.

 

if($_GET['id'])  {

    $id = $_GET['id'];

}

 

 

I know it's not the exact same thing, but it a similar case. If you wanna know exactly why it says undefined (which is only a part of the error - what is the rest?) you will have to post the whole error message