PHP Notice Problem

#1 (**permalink**) 10-15-2008, 06:11 PM

I am trying to use one page to display a form the when the page is first
accessed. Once the form is submitted then I want to use that page to process
the information and display the results. The fun part to this is that I am
getting this message:

"Notice: Undefined index: search in C:\Documents and Settings...\db_search.php
on line 13"

The first time the page is loaded the _GET['search'] hasn't been used and so I
think that is why it is giving me the notice.

I am running this off of the apache server I set up on my home computer. Other
php pages have worked fine but this one doesn't make sense.

Here is the code for the page:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>DB Search Page</title>
<link href="db_input.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
</head>

<body>

<?php
$search = $_GET['search'];
$self = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];
if ($search != NULL)
{
('
<form action="'.$_SERVER["PHP_SELF"].'" method="GET">
<label>Search: <input type="text name="search" />
</label>
<input type="submit" value="Find It Now!!!!" />
</form>
');
}
?>

</body>

</html>

#2 (**permalink**) 10-15-2008, 06:41 PM

On Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:10:16 +0000 (UTC), "UteFanJason"
<webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote:

> $search = $_GET['search'];
> $self = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];
> if ($search != NULL)
> {

Change the above to:

$self = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];
if (!isset($_GET['search']))
{
$search = $_GET['search'];

Gary

#3 (**permalink**) 10-15-2008, 07:41 PM

Gary White wrote:
> if (!isset($_GET['search']))
> {
> $search = $_GET['search'];

That won't work. You've put the negative operator in there by mistake.

It should be this:

$search = isset($_GET['search']) ? $_GET['search'] : null;

--
David Powers, Adobe Community Expert
Author, "The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3" (friends of ED)
Author, "PHP Solutions" (friends of ED)
http://foundationphp.com/

#4 (**permalink**) 10-15-2008, 08:10 PM

Gary and David,

Thank you for your help. That fixed the problem. With my luck I will run into
more while learning to create dynamic pages. But the help is appreciated.
Thanks again.

I haven't seen those other parts ---- isset($_GET['search']) ?
$_GET['search'] : null; ---- before I will look into how and why those work
like that. Thanks.

#5 (**permalink**) 10-15-2008, 09:26 PM

On Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:32:23 +0100, David Powers <david@example.com>
wrote:

>Gary White wrote:
>> if (!isset($_GET['search']))
>> {
>> $search = $_GET['search'];
>
>That won't work. You've put the negative operator in there by mistake.
>
>It should be this:
>
>$search = isset($_GET['search']) ? $_GET['search'] : null;

You're right ... I think. The logic in the original post threw me. It
was my understanding that the O/P wanted to display the form if it had
not been submitted. The only thing the $search variable was being used
for was to test that the form had been submitted. If you simply
omitted the $search = $_GET['search'] line, it should work. ;-)

Gary

#6 (**permalink**) 10-15-2008, 10:01 PM

Gary,

It is my objective to only display the form if it hasn't already been
submitted. The next step is to display the results if there was a submission.

I followed the suggestions and that did eliminate the notice I was getting but
the form didn't show up at all. I changed the if statement and it now outputs
the form no matter what.

Also, I have been looking around and have yet to find the answer. I'm looking
at the isset() function and the question mark in David's line

$search = isset($_GET['search']) ? $_GET['search'] : null;

What are they and how do they work?

Thanks.

#7 (**permalink**) 10-15-2008, 11:01 PM

UteFanJason wrote:
> I'm looking
> at the isset() function and the question mark in David's line
>
> $search = isset($_GET['search']) ? $_GET['search'] : null;
>
> What are they and how do they work?

isset() tests whether a variable has been declared:

http://docs.php.net/manual/en/function.isset.php

The question mark followed by the colon (?

is the conditional
(ternary) operator:

http://docs.php.net/manual/en/langua...comparison.php

The following line:

$search = isset($_GET['search']) ? $_GET['search'] : null;

has the same meaning as this:

if (isset($_GET['search'])) {
$search = $_GET['search'];
} else {
$search = null;
}

--
David Powers, Adobe Community Expert
Author, "The Essential Guide to Dreamweaver CS3" (friends of ED)
Author, "PHP Solutions" (friends of ED)
http://foundationphp.com/

#8 (**permalink**) 10-16-2008, 12:50 AM

Those pages help. I didn't realize the ?: were together. Thanks.

Thanks for the other link. That will help too.

So, since all of your help I have changed to code to the following and it
doesn't seem to be setting the variable $_GET['search'] because when I submit
it I am taken back to a page that has a blank form with the echo that the var
has not been sent.

**************************PHP CODE********************************

$self = $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];
if (!isset($_GET['search']))
{
echo 'The variable search is not set';
echo '<form action="'.$self.'" method="GET">';
echo '<label>Search: <input type="text name="search" /></label>';
echo '<input type="submit" value="Find It Now!!!!" />';
echo '</form>';
}
else
{
echo ' The variable search is set ';
}

***********************END OF PHP CODE****************************

#9 (**permalink**) 10-16-2008, 05:30 AM

On Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:48:41 +0000 (UTC), "UteFanJason"
<webforumsuser@macromedia.com> wrote:

> echo '<label>Search: <input type="text name="search" /></label>';

You're missing the closing quote after type="text above. Change it to:

echo '<label>Search: <input type="text" name="search" /></label>';

Gary

#10 (**permalink**) 10-16-2008, 05:14 PM

Thanks again. Good eye.

It is always a lot better to have another set of eyes to proofread material.

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