I understand that if you declare a variable within a php function with the 'global' keyword it will reference a variable declared outside the function, but why would a php programmer want to declare a variable outside of a function scope as 'global?' Thanks!
I understand what this does:
<?
$a = 1;
function $boo() {
global $a;
echo $a;
}
?>
But what I'm getting at is why would I want to do this?
<?
global $a;
function $boo() {
//foo
}
?>
It has to do with php scope If you have file a.php that has a class like this
<?
class test()
{
function test()
{
include('b.php');
}
}
?>
and a file b.php
<?
$a = 1;
?>
Then $a will only be accessible in the scope of function test()
if you have global $a in b.php, $a then becomes a global variable
here's the php doc about it : http://php.net/manual/en/function.include.php
I have no idea why you would want to do that. For all intents and purposes (unless I am very, very much mistaken) this is exactly the same as just:
<?
var $a;
function $boo() {
// foo
}
?>
Which in turn is the very same as
<?
function $boo() {
// foo
}
?>
because you generally don't have to instantiate your variables in PHP.
Very curious why you're using variably-named functions though? (function $boo() {} )
Well, IMHO the use of global variables is a poor programming practice. It can cause unintended side-effects in your program which are hard to debug, and makes it harder to maintain.
