php holidays in calendar error undefined variable - php

Question

i found some random code on the net and tried using it for my calendar but i keep getting this error:
Notice: Undefined variable: nextHoliday
this error is referring to the code at the end "RETURN $nextHoliday; "
I believe nextHoliday is defined tho so i tried a few things but nothing makes it work.. can someone please help?
Here's the code:
FUNCTION GetTimeStamp($MySqlDate)
{
$date_array = EXPLODE("-",$MySqlDate); // split the array
$var_year = $date_array[0];
$var_month = $date_array[1];
$var_day = $date_array[2];
$var_timestamp = MKTIME(0,0,0,$var_month,$var_day,$var_year);
RETURN($var_timestamp); // return it to the user
} // End function GetTimeStamp()
FUNCTION ordinalDay($ord, $day, $month, $year)
// ordinalDay returns date of the $ord $day of $month.
// For example ordinalDay(3, 'Sun', 5, 2001) returns the
// date of the 3rd Sunday of May (ie. Mother's Day).
//
// Note: $day must be the 3 char abbr. for the day, as
// given by date("D");
//
{
$firstOfMonth = GetTimeStamp("$year-$month-01");
$lastOfMonth = $firstOfMonth + DATE("t", $firstOfMonth) * 86400;
$dayOccurs = 0;
FOR ($i = $firstOfMonth; $i < $lastOfMonth ; $i += 86400)
{
IF (DATE("D", $i) == $day)
{
$dayOccurs++;
IF ($dayOccurs == $ord)
{ $ordDay = $i; }
}
}
RETURN $ordDay;
} // End function ordinalDay()
FUNCTION getNextHoliday()
// Looks through a lists of defined holidays and tells you which
// one is coming up next.
//
{
$year = DATE("Y");
CLASS holiday
{
VAR $name;
VAR $date;
VAR $catNum;
FUNCTION holiday($name, $date, $catNum)
// Contructor to define the details of each holiday as it is created.
{
$this->name = $name; // Official name of holiday
$this->date = $date; // UNIX timestamp of date
$this->catNum = $catNum; // category, we used for databases access
}
} // end class holiday
$holidays[] = NEW holiday("Groundhog Day", GetTimeStamp("$year-2-2"), "20");
$holidays[] = NEW holiday("Valentine's Day", GetTimeStamp("$year-2-14"), "14");
$holidays[] = NEW holiday("St. Patrick's Day", GetTimeStamp("$year-3-17"), "15");
$holidays[] = NEW holiday("Easter", EASTER_DATE($year), "16");
$holidays[] = NEW holiday("Mother's Day", ordinalDay(2, 'Sun', 5, $year), "3");
$holidays[] = NEW holiday("Father's Day", ordinalDay(3, 'Sun', 6, $year), "4");
$holidays[] = NEW holiday("Independence Day", GetTimeStamp("$year-7-4"), "17");
$holidays[] = NEW holiday("Christmas", GetTimeStamp("$year-12-25"), "13");
$numHolidays = COUNT($holidays);
FOR ($i = 0; $i < $numHolidays; $i++)
{
IF ( DATE("z") > DATE("z", $holidays[$i]->date) && DATE("z") <= DATE("z",
$holidays[$i+1]->date) )
{
$nextHoliday["name"] = $holidays[$i+1]->name;
$nextHoliday["dateStamp"] = $holidays[$i+1]->date;
$nextHoliday["dateText"] = DATE("F j, Y", $nextHoliday["dateStamp"]);
$nextHoliday["num"] = $holidays[$i+1]->catNum;
}
}
RETURN $nextHoliday;
} // end function GetNextHoliday
$nextHoliday = getNextHoliday();
ECHO $nextHoliday["name"]." (".$nextHoliday["dateText"].")";

Answer 1

You have one of two options. Either instantiate empty keys for your array values:
$nextHoliday = array();
$nextHoliday['name'] = '';
$nextHoliday['dateStamp'] = '';
$nextHoliday['dateText'] = '';
$nextHoliday['num'] = '';
$numHolidays = COUNT($holidays);
for ($i = 0; $i < $numHolidays; $i++) {
// ... Blah
}
Or use isset before each array lookup:
echo (isset($nextHoliday['name'] ? $nextHoliday['name'] : '') .
" (" .
(isset($nextHoliday) ? $nextHoliday["dateText"] : '' ) .
")";
Nothing better than the ternary operator for inline conditionals.
It's actually good that we're testing this in January, because otherwise this bug would have bitten you later on. The problem is that you are using less than/greater than to determine what the next holiday is. This fails to take into account the last holiday of the last year.
To fix this, the variable $lastHoliday needs to be a negative representation of the last holiday:
$numHolidays = COUNT($holidays);
$nextHoliday = array('name' => '', 'dateStamp' => '', 'dateText' => '', 'num' => '');
for ($i = 0; $i < $numHolidays - 1; $i++) {
$today = DATE("z");
if ($i == 0) {
$lastHoliday = (365 - DATE("z", $holidays[$numHolidays - 1]->date)) * -1;
} else {
$lastHoliday = DATE("z", $holidays[$i]->date);
}
$futureHoliday = DATE("z", $holidays[$i+1]->date);
//print_r($today); echo "<br />";
//print_r($lastHoliday); echo "<br />";
//print_r($futureHoliday); echo "<br />";
if ($today > $lastHoliday && $today <= $futureHoliday ) {
$nextHoliday["name"] = $holidays[$i+1]->name;
$nextHoliday["dateStamp"] = $holidays[$i+1]->date;
$nextHoliday["dateText"] = DATE("F j, Y", $nextHoliday["dateStamp"]);
$nextHoliday["num"] = $holidays[$i+1]->catNum;
}
}
Also consider typing PHP in lowercase, not uppercase, as it is an almost universal standard in PHP. One true brace style wouldn't hurt either.

Answer 2

$nextHoliday is used in a if but is not declared
Declare the variable before the for:
[...]
$nextHoliday = array();
FOR ($i = 0; $i < $numHolidays; $i++)
[...]