NYCPHP Meetup

[David Krings]

Daniel Convissor wrote:
> Paul:
> 
>> $value=$array[$key]
> 
> One right way to do this is:
> 
> if (array_key_exists($key, $array)) {
>    // Life is good.
>    $value = $array[$key];
> } else {
>    // Erm, it doesn't exist.  Now what?
>    // Typically either set to NULL or throw error.
> }
> 
> --Dan
> 


I second that. From a professional QA view point I way too often see that 
developers assume something to be there even if it is a record that their own 
code wrote to a table or array just a second earlier. While that may pan out 
most of the time and not cause problems all pieces come off once there is a 
problem.
I use mainly isset() since that allows for crafting the whole checking and 
default value assignment in one line that is still readable.

I find this to be similar to initializing variables. Sure, under PHP you can 
get away with not doing that, but once you come across the problem where you 
think $i has the value of 1 when PHP really sets it to 0 you get to understand 
why other languages/compilers throw errors when a variable gets used and comes 
out of nowhere. In that sense I find it quite OK that warnings or errors get 
thrown when one requests the value from an array element, but the provided key 
is nowhere to be found.

David