Admin categories search -Creating default object from empty value (see in debug logs)

[torvista]

vanilla install (+superglobals and backup mysql), local XAMPP install, MySQL 5.6.21, PHP 5.6.3

Go into catalog and search for "music": an admin debug log is created.

PHP Warning: Creating default object from empty value in ...\zc154\admin1\categories.php on line 1006

line 1006

   $pInfo->products_id= $pID; 

Seems to be when a category is returned from a search, not nothing or products-only.

[Ajeh]

I can reproduce this on my Zen Cart v1.5.4 when I have php 5.5 but not on my Zen Cart v1.5.4 when I have php 5.3.28 or php 5.3.29 ...

We will have to check into this further ...

[Ajeh]

Any interesting point is that this appears to only be triggered when both 1 or more Categories and 1 or more Products are found in the search, such as in 'music' which is both a Category and a Product ...

This will not trigger when only 1 or more Products are found, such as a search on 'DVD-DHWV' ...

This will not trigger when only 1 or more Categories are found and no Products ...

[torvista]

My hosting is php 5.4.34, does it there too.

[DrByte]

It's a result of PHP 5.4 becoming more strict in how it handles uninitialized objects.

Fortunately it's only throwing a minor "warning", and not a fatal error.

The solution may require a number of architectural changes, which may be relevant in other places also, so probably will be incorporated into a new version, and not treated as critical bugs.

[torvista]

I use the search extensively, could a few strategically placed "@" suppress the creation of these logs?

[DrByte]

Before you bother with suppressing things, where *else* in the admin are you able to trigger the same kind of message?

[torvista]

I haven't seen it occur anywhere else.

[DrByte]

To get rid of that warning entry in the log file, you can remove those lines causing it, as they're not used. It appears they're leftover from when that file was split into multiples for (slightly) easier maintenance:

These at 1005-1007 in /admin/categories.php can be removed:

  if (empty($pInfo->products_id)) {
    $pInfo->products_id= $pID;
  }

[torvista]

Additional information is that prior to commenting-out those lines, I found a note in my categories file at another point

if (empty($pInfo->products_id)) {
    //$pInfo = new stdClass();//steve added to 1.53 for php 5.4 and E_STRICT warnings, removed for 1.54, maybe fixed?
    $pInfo->products_id= $pID;
  } 

If I re-enable that commented-out declaration, the error log does not occur.

Which "solution" is recommended, or it really doesn't matter?