How to fix undefined variable/index notice?

A common notice when working with PHP can be:

Notice: Undefined variable: my_var in C:\xampp\htdocs\index.php on line 14

or

Notice: Undefined index: my_index C:\xampp\htdocs\index.php on line 24

Why does this happen?

You have some lines to set a variable or get posted data from a form like this:

$my_var = $_POST['myPostData'];

Now PHP does not have $_POST['myPostData'] if there is no POST data being sent to the Page. This is when these errors come into play.

How to fix “Undefined variable”?

$my_var = ""; // Or $my_var = 0; for numbers to make sure the Variable is initialised
//now use isset()
$my_var = isset($_POST['myPostData']) ? $_POST['myPostData'] : "";
//or empty()
$my_var = !empty($_POST['myPostData']) ? $_POST['myPostData'] : "";

How to fix “Undefined index”?

//again we have two options here
//via array_key_exists()
$my_var = array_key_exists('my_index', $my_array) ? $my_array['my_index'] : "";
//or via isset()
$my_var = isset($my_array['my_index']) ? $my_array['my_index'] : "";

Note that array_key_exists() returns true when array has the specified key ignoring its value while isset() returns true only if the specified key exists and is not null.

$my_array = [];
$my_array['exists'] = null;
var_dump(array_key_exists('exists', $my_array));
var_dump(isset($my_array['exists']));

So, you should array_key_exists() only in situations which null values are relevant, otherwise use isset() because it is much faster than array_key_exists().

Output

bool(true)
bool(false)

Null coalescing operator

Since PHP 7 there is also the ?? (or Null Coalescing) Operator available:

$my_var = $_POST['myPostData'] ?? "";