I’m embarking on another set of EE extensions, but this time I don’t want to be banging my head against a wall tracking down problems that in any other language would have been compile-time warnings.

Rick mentioned that it is possible to have PHP require that variables be declared before they are used.  Or was it that warnings would be emitted if they weren’t?  I already have error_reporting set to E_ALL.  This will tell me if I’m trying to read an unassigned variable, but it won’t tell me if I’m trying to write to an undeclared one.

Thanks for your help!
~joe

> it is possible to have PHP require that variables be declared before they are used. Or was it that warnings would be emitted if they weren’t?

If you have debugging turned all the way on (which you do) and you try to use a variable that you haven’t defined then you’ll get a PHP “notice” message.

In order to define the variable, you can just set it at the beginning:

Right, that’s attempting to read an unassigned variable.

What if at some point I mean to assign to variable $test but actually type $tset?  PHP will think I’m defining a new variable, when I meant to assign to an existing variable.

I’d rather distinguish between assignment and definition so that PHP knows when I’m making a mistake.  Is there any way to require that all variables be defined with “var” prior to being assigned?

Thanks for your help!
~joe