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Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:08:15 -0700
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Subject: Avoiding "Undefined index" notices
From: truth@proposaltech.com (Todd Ruth)

I'm not arguing whether the following code fragment is good
or bad (it's certainly less than ideal), but given the recent 
threads, I thought I'd show how I feel I've been encourage by 
php to code:

<?php
$x = array();
$y = 'something';
$temp =& $x[$y];
$temp++;
unset($temp);
?>

I'm not sure where (if anywhere) that technique is documented
or even if it should be documented, but if you want to avoid
"Undefined index" notices, that's one of the more terse
approaches.  The relative brevity is more obvious when the
variable names are long and $temp is re-linked several times
before unsetting.  It's probably less clear than alternatives
unless you see it often.

Here is an application to the defaults for configurations thread:

<?php
$config = array();
$param = 'param1';
$temp =& $config[$param];
$temp = $temp ?: 'default';
unset($temp);
var_dump($config);
?>

It isn't beautiful, but it avoids writing "$config[$param]"
more than once and it avoids the notices.

- Todd