Setting the page number with a default

Question

Consider this code segment:

if (empty($_GET)) {
 $page_number = 1;
} else {
 $page_number = $_GET["page_number"];
}

I wonder if there is a better, more succinct way to express that idea. I thought about using a ternary operator, but the improvement over the original is not substantial:

$page_number = empty($_GET) ? 1 : $_GET["page_number"];

Answer 1

EBrown has a good answer already, where he shows which steps has to be taken to make sure the page number is set correctly. He also comes up with a handy function. Let me show you another approach, using build-in functionality in PHP to handle the given problem.

---

Filter the input

Make use of PHPs filter_input:

$page_number = filter_input(INPUT_GET, 'page_number', FILTER_VALIDATE_INT);

It uses a predefined validation filter called FILTER_VALIDATE_INT, that ...

... validates value as integer, optionally from the specified range, and converts to int on success.

So $page_number will be of type int and not string in case of success. If the filter fails, $page_name will be null|false:

Value of the requested variable on success, FALSE if the filter fails, or NULL if the variable_name variable is not set. If the flag FILTER_NULL_ON_FAILURE is used, it returns FALSE if the variable is not set and NULL if the filter fails.

---

Should I always default to 1?

Like in your question, if $page_number is not set at all, you should set it to 1. Using filter_input as described before you can test this case like:

if (null === $page_number) {
 $page_number = 1;
}

But there are more cases to be handled like:

• invalid values, like -1|0|1000000¹
• other non-integer values, like hello-world|a4fe|1.2

I recommend to not to default to 1 in any of these cases, but to show a 404 error page instead.

To make sure the integer value of $page_number will produce a valid page, you can take it one step further and set a range for the filter. The complete example would look like

$page_number = filter_input(
 INPUT_GET,
 'page_number',
 FILTER_VALIDATE_INT,
 ['options' => ['min_range' => 1, 'max_range' => 104]]
);
if (false === $page_number) {
 // show 404 page
}
if (null === $page_number) {
 $page_number = 1;
}

---

^{1 Unless you have 1000000 or more pages of course.}

• Hai Vu: This is just what the doctor ordered. I did not know such a function exist.

Answer 2

You have a surprise bug: what happens when I do page.php?Name=EBrown? Well $_GET is not empty but your page_number sure isn't set.

That said, you should be doing something like the following:

$page_number = 1;
if (isset($_GET["page_number"})) {
 $page_number = $_GET["page_number"];
}

or

$page_number = $_GET["page_number"];
if (!isset($page_number)) {
 $page_number = 1;
}

The first defaults and then checks for the parameter, the second checks if it's set then defaults. Take your pick.

But those still don't handle invalid (non-numeric) input, so we can do that as well:

$page_number = $_GET["page_number"];
if (isset($page_number) === FALSE || is_numeric($page_number) === FALSE) {
 $page_number = 1;
}

Now we safely default to 1 when page_number is not set, or when it's not numeric.

Of course, we still have another bug: what happens if page_number is 1.12? That's probably unintended. So, we'll check for that as well:

$page_number = $_GET["page_number"];
if (isset($page_number) === FALSE || strpos($page_number, '.') !== FALSE || is_numeric($page_number) === FALSE) {
 $page_number = 1;
}

And finally we'd extract that to a method:

function defaultInt($intValue, $default) {
 if (isset($intValue) === FALSE
 || strpos($intValue, '.') !== FALSE
 || is_numeric($intValue) === FALSE) {
 return $default;
 }
 return $intValue;
}
$page_number = defaultInt($_GET["page_number"], 1);

Easy to use in the future as well.

• Mike Brant: +1 good advice on better way to approach this, however I would also point out to OP that filter_var or filter_input might be a more concise way o validate input such as this. I would also consider casting the input to integer to be consistent across both cases.
• Accountant م: just for the record . page?page_number=%2B5 and page?page_number=-5 will pass your function ., page?page_number=0x5 will pass too if you are before php 7.0.0 . although a string variable equals "+5" or "-5" will be evaluated as integer in a mathematical context in loosely typed language like php . but this is might not be your intended behavior of the function.

Answer 3

if you want to try the shorthand of that equation, you can go for
$pageNumber = isset($_GET['page_number']) && intval($_GET['page_number']) > 0 ? $_GET['page_number'] : 1
This will check, if the page_number is set or not. If set then is the value greater than 0 then get the page number, otherwise set to 1.