Bug #19140 [Com]: foreach fails on empty or unitialized variable

Edit report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=19140&edit=1 ID: 19140 Comment by: mail at waclawjacek dot com Reported by: jc at mega-bucks dot co dot jp Summary: foreach fails on empty or unitialized variable Status: Not a bug Type: Bug Package: Arrays related Operating System: Red Hat Linux 7.2 PHP Version: 4.2.2 Block user comment: N Private report: N New Comment: I second jc. It would be nice not to have to do if ( is_array() ) before every foreach(), like you don't have to with while(), when the variable is null. Previous Comments: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2002-08-28 05:41:03] derick@php.net FYI: I clearified this in the manual, it will show up in a few days online. Derick ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2002-08-28 05:32:48] jc at mega-bucks dot co dot jp Neglectful coding? Why do you consider it neglectful coding if I do this for an array but good coding for a string? PHP treats null strings as empty strings, why doesn't it do the same for arrays? All I want to know is, what is the documented behaviour for foreach on a null array. If there is no documented behaviour, let's add to the documentation. Something like: "foreach will fail on an unitialized (null) array". I had assumed that since PHP is usually treats null strings as empty strings it would do the same with null arrays. I was wrong. I tried to find documentation on what foreach will do in the case of a null array and could not find any. I agree with you that this is neglectfull coding. It would be nice if there was documentation to back it up :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2002-08-28 05:17:20] cynic@php.net if you insist on neglectful coding, lower your error_reporting level. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2002-08-28 05:11:43] jc at mega-bucks dot co dot jp What is the documented/expected behaviour for foreach on "null" arrays? PHP has not problems with statements such as: echo "$a"; So I don't see why it should have a problem with: foreach ($a as $val) {}; Actaully I *do* understand why it is a problem :) I just would like it to suggest that foreach be able to handle null arrays. It would be *such* a nice feature ;) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [2002-08-28 04:48:58] jc at mega-bucks dot co dot jp $a is an unitialized variable. It is not an empty variable ($a = ""). It is declared but not initialized. It has no value since the function returns nothing. The problem is that PHP cannot tell that $a is supposed to be an array since $a has no value or content whatsoever. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The remainder of the comments for this report are too long. To view the rest of the comments, please view the bug report online at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=19140 -- Edit this bug report at https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=19140&edit=1