Warning: Creating default object from empty value error messages after upgrading PHP to 5.4 [duplicate]

Question

This question already has answers here:

PHP 5.4: disable warning "Creating default object from empty value" (4 answers)

Closed 8 years ago.

After I upgraded our Joomla site to the latest version of Xampp 1.8.2 and upgrading to PHP 5.4, I am now getting these error messages on the front end of the site. I tried Google and could not fix this issue. Can someone help me please! Code is below

Warning: Creating default object from empty value in C:\xampp\htdocs\modules\mod_wf_department\helper.php on line 71

<?php
/**
 * @version 2.0 2012-04-17
 * @package Joomla
 * @subpackage Work Force
 * @copyright (C) 2012 the Thinkery
 * @license GNU/GPL see LICENSE.php
 */

defined('_JEXEC') or die('Restricted access');
require_once(JPATH_SITE.DS.'components'.DS.'com_workforce'.DS.'helpers'.DS.'employee.php');
require_once(JPATH_SITE.DS.'components'.DS.'com_workforce'.DS.'helpers'.DS.'html.helper.php');
require_once(JPATH_SITE.DS.'components'.DS.'com_workforce'.DS.'helpers'.DS.'query.php');
require_once(JPATH_SITE.DS.'components'.DS.'com_workforce'.DS.'helpers'.DS.'route.php');
require_once(JPATH_ADMINISTRATOR.DS.'components'.DS.'com_workforce'.DS.'classes'.DS.'admin.class.php');

jimport('joomla.utilities.date');

class modWFDepartmentHelper
{
    function prepareContent( $text, $length=300 ) 
    {
        // strips tags won't remove the actual jscript
        $text = preg_replace( "'<script[^>]*>.*?</script>'si", "", $text );
        $text = preg_replace( '/{.+?}/', '', $text);
        // replace line breaking tags with whitespace
        $text = preg_replace( "'<(br[^/>]*?/|hr[^/>]*?/|/(div|h[1-6]|li|p|td))>'si", ' ', $text );
        $text = strip_tags( $text );
        if (strlen($text) > $length) $text = substr($text, 0, $length) . "...";
        return $text;
    }

function getEmployeesList( $where, $limitstart = 0, $limit = 9999, $sort = 'e.ordering', $order = 'ASC' )
{
    $db = &JFactory::getDBO();
    $department = new workforceHelperEmployee($db);
    $department->setType('employees');
    $department->setWhere( $where );
    $department->setOrderBy( $sort, $order );
    $employees = $department->getEmployee($limitstart,$limit);
    return $employees;
}

function getList(&$params)
{
    $count                  = (int) $params->get('count', 5);
    $text_length            = intval($params->get( 'preview_count', 75) );
    $dept                   = (int) $params->get('department', 0);
    $featured               = (bool) $params->get('featured', 0);

    if($params->get('random', 1)){
        $sort                   = 'RAND()';
        $order                  = '';
    }else{
        $sort                   = 'ordering';
        $order                  = 'ASC';
    }

    $where = array();
    if( $dept )     $where[] = 'e.department = '.$dept;
    if( $featured)  $where[] = 'e.featured = 1';

    $rows = modWFDepartmentHelper::getEmployeesList($where,0,$count, $sort, $order);

    $i      = 0;
    $lists  = array();

    if( $rows ){
        foreach ( $rows as $row )
        {
            $lists[$i]->link            = JRoute::_(WorkforceHelperRoute::getEmployeeRoute($row->id, $row->departmentid));
            $lists[$i]->name            = $row->name;
            $lists[$i]->title           = $row->position;
            $lists[$i]->address         = $row->street_address;
            $lists[$i]->departmentname  = $row->departmentname;
            $lists[$i]->mainimage       = $row->icon;

            $prepared_text = modWFDepartmentHelper::prepareContent($row->bio, $text_length);
            if($params->get('clean_desc', 0)){
                $lists[$i]->introtext = modWFDepartmentHelper::sentence_case($prepared_text);
            }else{
                $lists[$i]->introtext = $prepared_text;
            }
            $i++;

            $prepared_text = '';
        }
    }

    return $lists;
}

function sentence_case($string) 
{
    $sentences = preg_split('/([.?!]+)/', $string, -1, PREG_SPLIT_NO_EMPTY|PREG_SPLIT_DELIM_CAPTURE);
    $new_string = '';
    foreach ($sentences as $key => $sentence) {
        $new_string .= ($key & 1) == 0?
        ucfirst(strtolower(trim($sentence))) :
        $sentence.' ';
    }
    return trim($new_string);
}

}

Answer 1

I don't believe you properly researched this error before asking your question (see here), but to fix it you need to initialise $lists[$i] to an object before assigning to its properties - change

foreach ($rows as $row) {
    $lists[$i]->link = JRoute::_(WorkforceHelperRoute::getEmployeeRoute($row->id, $row->departmentid));

to

foreach ($rows as $row) {
    $lists[$i] = new stdClass(); // initialise $lists[$i] to a new object
    $lists[$i]->link = JRoute::_(WorkforceHelperRoute::getEmployeeRoute($row->id, $row->departmentid));

PHP allows you to create properties on the fly like this, but only if the variable ($lists[$i] in this case) is already an object.