Yes I know global variables is a bad practice, but ease up on that rule for this one :P
My code:
include('something.php'); //where $from is declared
function myfunc() {
global $from;
echo "from(myfunc)=$from<br />";
...
}
echo "from=$from<br />";
myfunc();
The result is:
from=2010-05-01
from(myfunc)=
What's going on? :(
EDIT: If it helps, all the code above is inside a view file in CodeIgniter ( and yes, I know functions are not supposed to be inside views :P )
I'll bet a beer you are not inside the global scope with this snippet. Are you calling this from within a function?
In that case, the $from you define in something.php is not global, while the one you reference in the function is.
It will probably work if you add a global $from; inside something.php before you define $from.
Needless to say, it's not a nice practice either way, and you should follow Gordon's advice.
$GLOBALS['from'] = 'value' outside the function, and the value was found inside myfunc(). I didn't realize this page was generated by CodeIgniter's $this->load->view() function. Thanks!
Do yourself a favor and use Dependency Injection.
function myfunc($from) {
return "from(myfunc)=$from<br />";
}
$from = '2010-05-01';
echo myfunc($from);
Doing so will make your code more maintainable, less coupled and more easily unit-testable because it is isolated from the global scope. Plus, when you do it people think you are cool.
echo) on PHP 5.3.1.