PHP - Variable Safe Output [duplicate]

Question

I'm fetching information from a unofficial API. This API is very large and sometimes doesn't have all elements in it. I'm trying to display values from this API on my site without any errors.

What I've done is check the JSON values like so, to prevent errors:

echo (isset($json['item'])) ? $json['item'] : '';

Works, but it looks very unorganized. I've thought about creating a function to handle safe output, like so:

public function safeoutput($input, $fallback = '') {
    if(isset($input)) {
        return $input;
    }

    if(empty($input) || !isset($input)) {
        return $fallback;
    }
}

and then doing:

echo $engine->safeoutput($json['item'], 'Unavailable');

That unfortuanlly still outputs the Undefined variable error.

I was wondering if there's a better way to handle such information like I showed in the example.

PHP7 knows easy syntax: $json['item'] ?? 'my default value'. — Roman Hocke
– Roman Hocke, Commented Mar 4, 2019 at 15:18

ka_lin · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-04 15:18:25Z

1

Problem is that the key might not be set, so you would have to check it:

public function safeoutput($input, $key, $fallback = '') {
    if(isset($input[$key])) {
        return $input;
    }

    if(empty($input[$key]) || !isset($input[$key])) {
        return $fallback;
    }
}

Or you can have a shorter version:

public function safeoutput($input, $key, $fallback = '') {
    if(array_key_exists($key, $input) && !empty($input[$key])){
        return $input[$key];
    }
    return $fallback;
}

And call the method with the array and the key:

echo $engine->safeoutput($json, 'item', 'Unavailable');

answered Mar 4, 2019 at 15:18

ka_lin

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3 Comments

Appel Flap Over a year ago

I've tried this but if the key doesn't exist, it will still trigger the undefined index error for me.

ka_lin Over a year ago

Do some debug, sounds like there might be another issue. You can test the method by calling with an empty array or missing key to check

Appel Flap Over a year ago

My bad, got it working now. Thank you.

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