Question

Depending on which error reporting I set, my web app either works or displays a ton of errors. I was under the impression I didn’t need to initiate variables in PHP but setting the second error reporting seems to require it. What is going here? Should I go through and initiate all my variables?

error_reporting(E_ALL ^ E_NOTICE);

error_reporting(E_ALL | E_STRICT);

Answer 1

You are asking about whether to suppress the warning for uninitialized variables, but the code you are posting suppresses ALL E_NOTICE warnings. This is not quite the same thing, but it’s as close as you can get directly to what you’re asking; there is no way to suppress only uninitialized variable notices.

In a way, notices are possibly the most important warning/error messages of all because they point out potential logic errors, which are among the most difficult to identify and fix.

Given your options:

1. Suppress ALL E_NOTICE warnings.
2. Fix all uninitialized variables in your code.

I would recommend going with #2. It’s more work upfront, but a well-timed E_NOTICE might just save you a whole mess of trouble one day.