Question

Why many programmers use:

if ($_GET['var'] or $this->error)

instead of

if (isset($_GET['var']) or isset($this->error)

without adding

        error_reporting( error_reporting() & ~E_NOTICE )

or, (shorter but slower)

        if (@$_GET['var'] or @$this->error)

…or something similar ?

Do you need to somehow (?) configure php in the ini file to suppress the errors on non-existing variables and properties to use the “feature” or is it simply a bad practice one should avoid?

Answer 1

This doesn’t seem to me like bast practice at all. As you said correctly, without setting the error_reporting, PHP would throw many warnings on specific cases (where the variables weren’t set).

Using isset seems to me like the best way.