Correct use of Arrays & server vars.

Hangin' Around Joined: Nov 27, 2004 Posts: 37 Location: MN

In my experience from making a lot of blocks and moules for users, i have come to find that a certain percentage of users have problems when an array is accessed when it is not formatted correctly. This also applies to server variables like $_SERVER[HTTP_USER_AGENT].

An array is basically many variables in one. Instead of having this:

Code:

$var1 $var2 $var3 etc...

We can have everything inside $var like:

Code:

 $var[1] $var[2] $var[3] etc...

Anyways, when accessing these vars, theres a correct way to do them and a wrong way in certain circumstances. Basically 3 possible ways. 2 are correct, 1 is wrong.

Examples of this:

Inside double quotes (correct):

Code:

echo "$var[1]";

Outside double quotes (correct) (notice the single quotes):

Code:

if ($var['1'] == 10) { echo "$var[1]"; }

Outside double quotes (wrong) (missing single quotes on var outside double quotes):

Code:

if ($var[1] == 10) { echo "$var[1]"; }

The wrong style may work on most users, but it doesnt work on ALL users.

PHP-Nuke is littered with bad arrays.

This is probably the cause of the login security code problem for nuke 7.5 and 7.6 discussed in another thread.