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POIs it valid PHP to echo a non-existent variable?
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  1. POIs it valid PHP to echo a non-existent variable?
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    copied!<p>I'm using this code in my individual pages to create a unique title and active tab.</p> <pre><code>&lt;?php $title = "Blanktree Design"; $home = "class=\"active\""; include "header.php"; ?&gt; </code></pre> <p>And I'm using this code in my header.php to carry out these differences.</p> <pre><code>&lt;title&gt;&lt;?php echo $title; ?&gt;&lt;/title&gt; &lt;ul id="nav"&gt; &lt;li &lt;?php echo $home ?&gt;&gt;&lt;span&gt;begin&lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="/"&gt;home&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li &lt;?php echo $about ?&gt;&gt;&lt;span&gt;curious?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="/about"&gt;about&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li &lt;?php echo $contact ?&gt;&gt;&lt;span&gt;locate&lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="/contact"&gt;contact&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; </code></pre> <p>What I'm most curious of, since I'm brand new to PHP is... Is it valid to just echo a non-existent variable? I mean... it works and it doesn't error out. But I was just wondering if this is poor programming.</p> <p>Thanks in advance.</p> <p><strong>RESOLVED</strong></p> <p>At the end of the day all the discussion is complete and this is what I've found to make the most sense in my specific scenario:</p> <pre><code>&lt;?php $title = "Blanktree Design"; $home = "class=\"active\""; $about = $contact = ""; include "header.php"; ?&gt; </code></pre> <p>And calling the variables the same as before:</p> <pre><code>&lt;ul id="nav"&gt; &lt;li &lt;?php echo $home ?&gt;&gt;&lt;span&gt;begin&lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="/"&gt;home&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li &lt;?php echo $about ?&gt;&gt;&lt;span&gt;curious?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="/about"&gt;about&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li &lt;?php echo $contact ?&gt;&gt;&lt;span&gt;locate&lt;/span&gt;&lt;a href="/contact"&gt;contact&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; </code></pre>
 

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