Re: Local variable protection

>> On Oct 12, 2011, at 4:24 PM, Ken Robinson wrote: >> Yes, but scope does not necessarily protect a value. Within a function >> globals are out of scope, but their values can still be accessed through >> $GLOBALS. Tangental to the main point (and probably obvious to many) but I used to believe (until recently) that variables within a $GLOBAL had to be defined before being used, such as: $GLOBAL['myVar'] = 'test'; echo($GLOBAL['myVar']); But that is not true. You can do this: $myVar = 'test'; echo($GLOBAL['myVar']); And reach the same result. What is true (which I found surprising) was that any variable defined within the main script are automatically included in the $GLOBAL array. So, if in your main script you have the statement: $myVar = 'test'; Then the $GLOBAL['myVar'] has also been created and will hold the value of 'test' without any additional coding. While many of you will say "But of course, that's the way it works." I actually said "What?!?" You see, I seldom use globals in my scripts and this runs counter to my 'keep the globals to an absolute minimum' practice. So while I was thinking my scripts didn't have globals, it was a surprise to me to find out that in the background they were present anyway. So, if you want a main script variable (i.e., $myVar) to be accessed by a function, you can do it by stating: myFunction { global $myVar; // and then using $myVar } or myFunction { $myVar = $GLOBAL['myVar'] // and then using $myVar } or via the standard ways by sending the value (or reference) to the function. I hope my ignorance helps someone. Cheers, tedd _____________________ tedd@sperling.com http://sperling.com