Undefined Index on Radio Buttons

PHP
1

I’m getting an error that I don’t understand…

At the bottom of my script I have a form with radio buttons like this…


// Display Friend-Requests.
echo "<li>
		<a href='/account/profile.php?user=$username&tab=about-me'>
			$username<br />
			<img src='/uploads/" . $photoName . "' width='80' alt='Thumbnail of ' . $username />
		</a>
		<fieldset id='friendRequestDecision'>
			<input id='" . $requestorID . "_1' name='friendRequestDecision[" . $requestorID . "]' type='radio' value='0' />
			<label for='" . $requestorID . "_1'>Decide Later</label>

			<input id='" . $requestorID . "_2' name='friendRequestDecision[" . $requestorID . "]' type='radio' value='1' />
			<label for='" . $requestorID . "_2'>Accept</label>

			<input id='" . $requestorID . "_3' name='friendRequestDecision[" . $requestorID . "]' type='radio' value='2' />
			<label for='" . $requestorID . "_3'>Decline</label>
		</fieldset>
	</li>\
";

And at the top of my script I have PHP to handle the form like this…


	if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD']=='POST'){
		// Form was Submitted (Post).

		// Initialize Errors Array.
		$errors = array();


		// **********************
		// Validate Form Data.	*
		// **********************
		foreach($_POST['friendRequestDecision'] as $requestorID => $decision){
			// Cast to Integers.
			$requestorID = (int)$requestorID;
			$decision = (int)$decision;

If I submit the Form with nothing selected, I get this error…

Notice: Undefined index: friendRequestDecision in /Users/user1/Documents/DEV/++htdocs/06_Debbie/account/manage_requests.php on line 56
Call Stack
#	Time	Memory	Function	Location
1	0.0013	95340	{main}( )	../manage_requests.php:0

I supposed since I don’t have this in my Form…

checked = 'checked'

…that could be causing this problem?

But what I don’t get is that I have a similar Form with TextAreas, and if I submit that Form with “Null” values it does NOT cause this same error (If Nulls are the issue, then I’d expect similar issues…)

What is going on?

And how can I fix my code so this error doesn’t happen?? :-/

Thanks,

Debbie

2

Radios and checkboxes are different from text input. If not checked, they aren’t in the input. So you’ll want to check isset() first.

3

QMonkey is correct, when working with an array of checkboxes for example you always need to ensure that the variable index exists in the $_POST super global. As well as that i would also recommend you use either the count() or sizeof() function as sometimes even if an array is set it can still be empty, see the below example.

if (isset($_POST['friendRequestDecision']) && sizeof($_POST['friendRequestDecision'])) {
    // Run your foreach code here
}