PHP Notice: Undefined offset: 1 with array when reading data

Question

I am getting this PHP error:

PHP Notice:  Undefined offset: 1

Here is the PHP code that throws it:

$file_handle = fopen($pa         


        

Answer 1

How to reproduce the above error in PHP:

php> $yarr = array(3 => 'c', 4 => 'd');

php> echo $yarr[4];
d

php> echo $yarr[1];
PHP Notice:  Undefined offset: 1 in 
/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/phpsh/phpsh.php(578) : 
eval()'d code on line 1

What does that error message mean?

It means the php compiler looked for the key 1 and ran the hash against it and didn't find any value associated with it then said Undefined offset: 1

How do I make that error go away?

Ask the array if the key exists before returning its value like this:

php> echo array_key_exists(1, $yarr);

php> echo array_key_exists(4, $yarr);
1

If the array does not contain your key, don't ask for its value. Although this solution makes double-work for your program to "check if it's there" and then "go get it".

Alternative solution that's faster:

If getting a missing key is an exceptional circumstance caused by an error, it's faster to just get the value (as in echo $yarr[1];), and catch that offset error and handle it like this: https://stackoverflow.com/a/5373824/445131