Error due to variable scope in PHP - php

Question

I have the following code
function scraping_digg() {
// create HTML DOM
$html = file_get_html('http://digg.com/');
// get news block
foreach($html->find('div.news-summary') as $article) {
// get title
$item['title'] = trim($article->find('h3', 0)->plaintext);
// get details
$item['details'] = trim($article->find('p', 0)->plaintext);
// get intro
$item['diggs'] = trim($article->find('li a strong', 0)->plaintext);
$ret[] = $item;
}
// clean up memory
$html->clear();
unset($html);
return $ret;
}
When I run it I get the following error.
Undefined variable: ret in /opt/lampp/htdocs/web_scrapper/example/scraping/example_scraping_digg.php on line
I can't find the fix for the scope of $ret. Please help.

Answer 1

In the beggining of scraping_digg function declare variable:
$ret = array();

Answer 2

The line number would be the most important information!
$ret[] = $item;
This line will likely trigger the notice, at the start of the function add something like
$ret=array();

Answer 3

Its because $ret is undefined...
Try declaring $ret before your loop
function scraping_digg() {
// create HTML DOM
$html = file_get_html('http://digg.com/');
$ret = array();
// get news block
foreach($html->find('div.news-summary') as $article) {
// get title
$item['title'] = trim($article->find('h3', 0)->plaintext);
// get details
$item['details'] = trim($article->find('p', 0)->plaintext);
// get intro
$item['diggs'] = trim($article->find('li a strong', 0)->plaintext);
$ret[] = $item;
}
// clean up memory
$html->clear();
unset($html);
return $ret;
}

Answer 4

I think you don't initialize both $ret and $item within the function scope.
function scraping_digg() {
// create HTML DOM
$html = file_get_html('http://digg.com/');
$ret = array();
// get news block
foreach($html->find('div.news-summary') as $article) {
$item = array();
// get title
$item['title'] = trim($article->find('h3', 0)->plaintext);
// get details
$item['details'] = trim($article->find('p', 0)->plaintext);
// get intro
$item['diggs'] = trim($article->find('li a strong', 0)->plaintext);
$ret[] = $item;
}
// clean up memory
$html->clear();
unset($html);
return $ret;
}

Answer 5

I couldn't even find any div with the class of news-summary on digg's homepage. That foreach loop probably never get executed because PHP couldn't find any of the div you're looking for. Thus, $ret is never declared.
However you could add $ret = array(); at the top of the function as hsz mentioned in his answer to make the error message go away.