How I PHP: Using defaults for input arguments

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Jun 302008

Just a short one today, because I’m really busy (un)fortunately.

You can take out and check each argument at a time:

  $search = isset($_GET['search']) ? $_GET['search'] : null;
  $page = isset($_GET['page']) ? $_GET['page'] : 1;
  $limit = isset($_GET['limit']) ? $_GET['limit'] : 15;
  // etc

  $search = isset($_GET['search']) ? $_GET['search'] : null;
  $page = isset($_GET['page']) ? $_GET['page'] : 1;
  $limit = isset($_GET['limit']) ? $_GET['limit'] : 15;
  // etc

But to do it in one go, just do:

1	$args = $_GET + array('search'=>null, 'page'=>1, 'limit'=>15);

  $args = $_GET + array('search'=>null, 'page'=>1, 'limit'=>15);

Note that in some cases it is important to filter your input, that is not done here.

9 Responses to “How I PHP: Using defaults for input arguments”

Lukas says:

30 June 2008 at 13:09

This will obviously only work with single dimensional arrays. I have long begged the core developers to add a function to merge multi dimensional arrays, while preserving the original structure (not like array_merge_recursive(), which useless in every way).

Also there has been talk about an ifsetor() to make explict handling as you did on your long version less painful. It was never added, but there is a userland hack:
http://wiki.php.net/rfc/ifsetor#userland_2
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Andrew Cairns says:

30 June 2008 at 14:24

This is a good way of setting defaults for required vars.
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kenrick says:

30 June 2008 at 22:04

some input filter libraries will provide that kind of mechanism, i didn’t realize that you could just add the arrays together, though now I see it, it makes sense.
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Andrew Dashin says:

7 July 2008 at 09:03

Heh, I was phping for two years but didn’t knew about it!
That’s a pity I am not using php anymore
Thank you for a good tip!
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Richard says:

21 November 2008 at 07:36

Sweet. I’m pretty new to PHP but that’s a helpful tip even for a newbie such as myself. I’m still getting used to the syntax, so that all in one, one liner code is difficult one the eyes, but still sweet

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Antje Schipmann says:

22 February 2010 at 23:21

great tip.
Thanks mate.

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