PHP - Cleanup Super Globals

Almost every time when I read about globals, programmers discourage their use. I have a function where I need to send back some variables (which I will use in a query) so I need to use globals. Below is the function and query. I'm trying to figure out if it's ok to use globals in it.

function paginate($connection, $tableName) {
//the forsaken globals
global $limit; 
global $start;

//Pagination
$targetpage = "http://localhost/website/untitled2.php"; 
$limit = 4; 

//count rows
$sql = "SELECT COUNT(*) as num FROM $tableName";
$total_pages = $connection->query($sql) or die(mysqli_error($connection)); 
$row = $total_pages->fetch_assoc();
$total_pages = $row['num'];

//if there's no page number, set it to the first page
$stages = 3;
$page = isset($_GET['page']) ? $_GET['page'] : 0;
$start = empty($page) ? 0 : ($page - 1) * $limit;

// Initial page num setup
if ($page == 0){$page = 1;}
$prev = $page - 1;
$next = $page + 1;
$lastpage = ceil($total_pages/$limit);
$LastPagem1 = $lastpage - 1;


$paginate = '';
if($lastpage > 1)
{

$paginate .= "<div class='paginate'>";
// Previous
if ($page > 1){
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=$prev'>previous</a>";
}else{
$paginate.= "<span class='disabled'>previous</span>"; }



// Pages
if ($lastpage < 7 + ($stages * 2)) // Not enough pages to breaking it up
{
for ($counter = 1; $counter <= $lastpage; $counter++)
{
if ($counter == $page){
$paginate.= "<span class='current'>$counter</span>";
}else{
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=$counter'>$counter</a>";}
}
}
elseif($lastpage > 5 + ($stages * 2)) // Enough pages to hide a few?
{
// Beginning only hide later pages
if($page < 1 + ($stages * 2))
{
for ($counter = 1; $counter < 4 + ($stages * 2); $counter++)
{
if ($counter == $page){
$paginate.= "<span class='current'>$counter</span>";
}else{
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=$counter'>$counter</a>";}
}
$paginate.= "...";
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=$LastPagem1'>$LastPagem1</a>";
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=$lastpage'>$lastpage</a>";
}
// Middle hide some front and some back
elseif($lastpage - ($stages * 2) > $page && $page > ($stages * 2))
{
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=1'>1</a>";
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=2'>2</a>";
$paginate.= "...";
for ($counter = $page - $stages; $counter <= $page + $stages; $counter++)
{
if ($counter == $page){
$paginate.= "<span class='current'>$counter</span>";
}else{
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=$counter'>$counter</a>";}
}
$paginate.= "...";
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=$LastPagem1'>$LastPagem1</a>";
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=$lastpage'>$lastpage</a>";
}
// End only hide early pages
else
{
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=1'>1</a>";
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=2'>2</a>";
$paginate.= "...";
for ($counter = $lastpage - (2 + ($stages * 2)); $counter <= $lastpage; $counter++)
{
if ($counter == $page){
$paginate.= "<span class='current'>$counter</span>";
}else{
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=$counter'>$counter</a>";}
}
}
}

// Next
if ($page < $counter - 1){ 
$paginate.= "<a href='$targetpage?page=$next'>next</a>";
}else{
$paginate.= "<span class='disabled'>next</span>";
}

$paginate.= "</div>";


}
 echo $total_pages.' Results';
 // pagination
 echo $paginate;
 
}//end function


and this is how I'm using the function. Without the globals I would get undefined vars $start and $limit used in the query below.


paginate($connection, "categories"); 

$sql = "SELECT * FROM categories ORDER BY cat_name LIMIT $start, $limit";
$cats_result = $connection->query($sql) or die(mysqli_error($connection)); 
while ($row = $cats_result->fetch_assoc()) { 
$cat_id = $row['cat_id'];
$cat_name = $row['cat_name'];
$cat_desc = $row['cat_desc'];

...etc


Am I using the globals properly? 

What does this mean?

Code: [Select]
{$GLOBALS['path']}

Ok so I have a single mySQL database on a dedicated server hosted through hostgator..

In this database I have 1 table that is a very large table it has well over 900,000 rows on it and we anticipate another 8.1 million records to be added within another 6 months and from there expect the table to grow regularly. Right now my issue is and can only foresee it getting worse as the size gets larger. Is that my queries are running slower and slower. Sometimes even resulting in the DB crashing. So what I am trying to figure out is how do I speed this up. I've tried 101 ways to query the DB to speed it up and can't get it to load 10 results 10.. in less than 30 seconds. I know some of my issue is the fact that I need distinct results or unique ones rather. As there are several duplicate entries but I only need to pull out one of each for this particular function which is a search.

So that said is there any advice one can give me to speed up my query results. I would offer up a sample of my current queries but its just your common query using distinct.

Well I heard that registering $GLOBALS is a bad practice in general since their values can be changed by anyone at anytime. However, the usage of $GLOBALS does simplify the script considerably at times when a certain column in a table needs to be retrieved repeatedly. A good example is user's money data stored in table prefix_users as shown below:

Code: [Select]
$result = mysql_query( "SELECT * FROM {$prefix}users WHERE uid = '$uid'");
$GLOBALS['usersettings'] = mysql_fetch_array($result);
$GLOBALS['money'] = $GLOBALS['usersettings']['money'];

If the above code is included in a function file, it will be possible to simply use $GLOBALS['money'] to retrieve user's money data without having to write lines of mysql commands everytime. So I was wondering, is there another way to retrieve database info from a certain column easily but not to register $GLOBALS? Just curious. 

I WANT TO MAKE AN ARRAY LIKE $GLOBALS structu

if you run var_dump($GLOBALS): 

you will see that this is an array and contains another 9 array with key names.

when there is a value(name) in "_POST" you cant use echo $GLOBALS["name"]. but when there is a value("fname") in "GLOBALS" you can use echo $GLOBALS["fname"].

how this array works like that? and how to make an array that behave like that?

Edited January 17, 2020 by Silent-B

I've got my own proprietary framework. I call it Brain. It uses composer, and installation is done with a single composer file, which is handy. Here's an example:

{
    "name": "skunkbad/brain-test",
    "description": "My Awesome App",
    "license": "proprietary",
    "minimum-stability": "dev",
    "repositories": [
        {
            "type": "hg",
            "url": "ssh://hg@bitbucket.org/skunkbad/brain"
        }
    ],
    "require": {
        "skunkbad/brain": "default"
    },
    "scripts": {
        "post-install-cmd": "Brain\\Statics\\BrainInstallScript::run"
    }
}

Brain has it's own dependencies, which aren't all really dependencies, but I've added them all to its composer.json file so I get everything I want for a new project. Here is it's composer.json:

{
    "name": "skunkbad/brain",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "type": "framework",
    "license": "Proprietary",
    "authors": [
        {
            "name": "Robert B Gottier",
            "email": "xXxXxXxXx@gmail.com",
            "homepage": "http://brianswebdesign.com",
            "role": "Developer"
        }
    ],
    "require": {
        "pimple/pimple"          : "v2.0.0",
        "swiftmailer/swiftmailer": "v5.2.0",
        "dompdf/dompdf"          : "0.6.1",
        "phpseclib/phpseclib"    : "0.3.6",
        "stripe/stripe-php"      : "v1.15.0",
        "firephp/firephp-core"   : "dev-master",
        "doctrine/dbal"          : "v2.4.2"
    },
    "autoload": {
        "psr-4": { 
            "Brain\\": "/",
            "App\\": "../../../App/"
        },
        "classmap": [
        	"Statics/"
        ]
    }
}

In Windows terminal, I can run composer install or composer install --prefer-dist, and it seems that especially when the doctrine packages are being downloaded or cloned (whatever it does), its super slow. Some of them hang for so long that occasionally the terminal will give me a message indicating a particular package timed out (5 mins).   So I was wondering if this is just the norm. Feels like I'm on dial-up, but my internet connection is Verizon FiOS (fiber optic). Here is an example of the time-out message I get from Composer:     Failed to download doctrine/common from source: The process "git clone --no-checkout "git://github.com/doctrine/common.git" "C:\XXXxxx" && cd /D "C:\XXXxxx" && git remote add composer "git://github.com/doctrine/common.git" && git fetch composer" exceeded the timeout of 300 seconds.   I timed my install, and composer/common actually hung for about 7 mins. Total time was 9.5 mins.

Using:
 $file = fopen("file1.txt", "r") or exit("Unable to open file!");


I have multiple files (file1.txt, file2.txt, etc.) how can I edit this so it just takes ANY file that ends in .txt and opens it?

I have been trying to better understand how php works on a more in depth level, and recently I have been tinkering with arrays.

Using print_r() I have been studying the $GLOBAL array, and I found something I can't seem to find an explanation for.

In my $GLOBALS array there are variables I have set in a configuration file, but never actually made into globals.

Take the following code, and its output for example.


echo "<pre>";
echo print_r($GLOBALS);
echo "</pre>";


The output:
Code: [Select]
Array
(
    [GLOBALS] => Array
 *RECURSION*
    [_POST] => Array
        (
        )

    [_GET] => Array
        (
        )

    [_COOKIE] => Array
        (
            [PHPSESSID] => fai4rtfgdt6o6iaihh62d0pa15
        )

    [_FILES] => Array
        (
        )

    [_SERVER] => Array
        (
            [HTTP_HOST] => DOMAIN
            [HTTP_USER_AGENT] => Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.10) Gecko/20100914 Firefox/3.6.10
            [HTTP_ACCEPT] => text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
            [HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE] => en-us,en;q=0.5
            [HTTP_ACCEPT_ENCODING] => gzip,deflate
            [HTTP_ACCEPT_CHARSET] => ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
            [HTTP_KEEP_ALIVE] => 115
            [HTTP_CONNECTION] => keep-alive
            [HTTP_REFERER] => http://DOMAIN/test.php
            [HTTP_COOKIE] => PHPSESSID=fai4rtfgdt6o6iaihh62d0pa15
            [HTTP_CACHE_CONTROL] => max-age=0
            [CONTENT_TYPE] => application/x-www-form-urlencoded
            [CONTENT_LENGTH] => 67
            [PATH] => /sbin:/usr/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin
            [SERVER_SIGNATURE] =>
            [SERVER_SOFTWARE] => Apache
            [SERVER_NAME] => DOMAIN
            [SERVER_ADDR] => IPADDRESS
            [SERVER_PORT] => 80
            [REMOTE_ADDR] => 198.65.168.24
            [DOCUMENT_ROOT] => /home/USER/www/DOMAIN
            [SERVER_ADMIN] => webmaster@DOMAIN
            [SCRIPT_FILENAME] => /home/USER/www/DOMAIN/test.php
            [REMOTE_PORT] => 43272
            [GATEWAY_INTERFACE] => CGI/1.1
            [SERVER_PROTOCOL] => HTTP/1.1
            [REQUEST_METHOD] => POST
            [QUERY_STRING] =>
            [REQUEST_URI] => /test.php
            [SCRIPT_NAME] => /test.php
            [PHP_SELF] => /test.php
            [REQUEST_TIME] => 1286050077
        )

    [date] => October 2, 2010
    [db_date] => 10/02/2010
    [error] => Array
        (
        )

)
1

The 3 items at the bottom.

Code: [Select]
    [date] => October 2, 2010
    [db_date] => 10/02/2010
    [error] => Array

Were set inside of a php config file. My question is, how did they end up in the $GLOBALS array?

Learning something new here so if anyone can tell me why I this wont return a value?

page1.php
Code: [Select]
<?php
require "page2.php";

getuserid();
echo $userID;
  
?>
page2.php
Code: [Select]
<?php
function getuserid() {
        $user =& JFactory::getUser();
        $userID = $user->id;
        global $userID;
    }
?>

This topic has been moved to Application Design.

http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php?topic=356029.0

I'm learning functions and I'm working on a rating script. This is a small test script that works, you can try it out yourself:


<?php

// Rating System

function while_test (){

$a = 1;
$b = 4;
$t_id = 1;

global $likes;

global $dislikes;

global $con_id;

while ($a++ <= $b){

echo "<center>";

echo "<table><tr><td>Table: </td></tr>";

echo "<tr><td>This is a table test </td></tr>"; 

echo "<tr><td><form action='' method='post'>";

echo "<button type='submit' name='likes' value='Y'>likes</button>";

echo "<button type='submit' name='dislikes' value='N'>dislikes</button>";

echo "<input type='hidden' name='hidden_id' value='" . $t_id . "' /></form></td></tr></table>"; 

echo "</center><br /><br />"; 

$t_id++;

$likes = $_POST['likes'];

$dislikes = $_POST['dislikes'];

$con_id = $_POST['hidden_id'];

}

}



while_test();


if ($likes) {

echo "likes it: " . $likes . " con_id: " . $con_id;

} elseif ($dislikes) {

echo "dislikes it: " . $dislikes . " con_id: " . $con_id;

}

?>


I've gotten recommended before not use globals, because the projects would become unmanageable, and I'm wondering how would I be able to avoid using globals in this example?

I'm able to in-ject variables through the parenthesis, but I'm not able to out-ject variables, if that makes sense. (?)
At least it doesn't work for me.

How would I use those three variables $likes, $dislikes and $con_id outside the function without setting them as globals, what would be good practice?

Hi guys,

I am trying out this code but it does not work, any idea what I am doing wrong?

<?php
include 'connect.php';
$tbl_name="users";

$sql="SELECT * FROM $tbl_name";
$result=mysql_query($sql);

$count=mysql_num_rows($result);

?>
<table width="400" border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td><form name="form1" method="post" action="">
<table width="400" border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1" bgcolor="#CCCCCC">
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#FFFFFF">&nbsp;</td>
<td colspan="4" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><strong>Delete multiple rows in mysql</strong> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">#</td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><strong>Id</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><strong>Firstname</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><strong>Lastname</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><strong>Location</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><strong>Email</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><strong>Website</strong></td>
</tr>
<?php
while($rows=mysql_fetch_array($result)){
?>
<tr>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><input name="checkbox[]" type="checkbox" id="checkbox[]" value="<? echo $rows['id']; ?>"></td>
<td bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><? echo $rows['userID']; ?></td>
<td bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><? echo $rows['firstname']; ?></td>
<td bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><? echo $rows['lastname']; ?></td>
<td bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><? echo $rows['location']; ?></td>
<td bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><? echo $rows['email']; ?></td>
<td bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><? echo $rows['website']; ?></td>
</tr>
<?php
}
?>
<tr>
<td colspan="5" align="center" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"><input name="delete" type="submit" id="delete" value="Delete"></td>
</tr>
<?

if($delete){
for($i=0;$i<$count;$i++){
$del_id = $checkbox[$i];
$sql = "DELETE FROM $tbl_name WHERE id='$del_id'";
$result = mysql_query($sql);
}


if($result){
echo "<meta http-equiv=\"refresh\" content=\"0;URL=showusers2.php\">";
}
}
mysql_close();
?>
</table>
</form>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

HI!

Can someone explain the variables $value and $key that are being produced  at the end of the output by the following code. It seems like the foreach loop is creating two extra variables.




<?php

$test_1 = "matt";
$test_2 = "kim";
$test_3 = "jessica";
$test_4 = "keri";


foreach ($GLOBALS as $key => $value) {
  echo $key . "- - -" . $value;
  echo "<br />";
}

?>


Output

GLOBALS- - -Array
_POST- - -Array
_GET- - -Array
_COOKIE- - -Array
_FILES- - -Array
test_1- - -matt
test_2- - -kim
test_3- - -jessica
test_4- - -keri
value- - -keri
key- - -value

Thanks!
steadythecourse

I just want to know how to create a global variable from within a function.

The reason I want to do this is I'm making mysql queries that may or may not have data in a function, if the data does indeed exist, I want to declare variables at that point.
My queries are grouped logically by year/month, and as a result I'm going to be appending data to existing variables if they exist so it makes more sense to just append it to what would be the global variable anyways instead of just passing large strings out of the function to just be appended anyways -- plus it prevents me from creating a bunch of pointless variables.

I intend additionally take the variables created inside the function and then store them in an encompassing global array (pre-defined outside of function) and at the end of the script do a foreach through it so I can iterate through the variables to grab my data knowing that there won't be pointless crap in there.

I'm trying to create global variables by using variable variables ($$whichever). The code giving me issues inside the function is just like this:
Code: [Select]
function SeekAndAppend ($vars, $being, $passed) {
   global $$whatever;         // Trying to define it here
   global $array;             // Calling predefined $array
   $array[] = "$$whatever";   // Passing just created global to the array for iteration later
}

When I iterate through the array the expected name of what would be the global variable name is there, but the global variable itself does not exist -- just at the function level.

If someone has a recommendation on a better way to do it, I'll listen, but please don't turn it into a lecture.   

EDIT: Grammar & Clarity

I am using a MVC framework and in my controller I have defined a class variable for configurations.  In my action I have a call to the configuration class to set the class variable to the current configurations.

Code: [Select]
public $configArray = array();

public function actionBuild($id)
{
$this->configArray=Config::model()->getConfigArray($id);

$this->buildStep1();
...
}




When I echo the configuration in the method it is 10 but when I echo in buildStep1 it is 11.  What is the proper way for configArray to be global and updated when I call getConfigArray for use in functions in the class?