Styling PHP in CSS

[usman07]

I would like to style this echo in my css, how would I go about making it a div class or something to give it a ID.

die ("Sorry, No Results Match Your Search.");

 

Thank You

[Jessica]

die ('<div class="error">Sorry, No Results Match Your Search.</div>');

 

But really you should handle errors a little more elegantly.

[usman07]

Yeah, thats brilliant thank you very much.

[scootstah]

Please, don't use die() like that. There's special circumstances where you need to terminate the application, but these kind of responses are definitely not one of them.

 

If you use die() like that, one of two things are going to happen:

1. The user is going to see a white page with only that text. They will have to manually hit the back button which, depending on your application, may or may not prompt to resend POST headers. It's extremely annoying from the user's perspective, and it takes a lot of unnecessary time on the user's part to perform another search.

 

2. Half of your layout will render, and the rest will not. This will only happen if you mix your business and presentation logic, but it is still common nonetheless.

 

 

[usman07]

ahh ok thank you for that information.

[xyph]

Using register_shutdown_function, you could have the footer display after a die command.

 

Overall, it's considered bad practise, but like globals, there's nothing 'wrong' with using it in small applications, as long as you can keep track of what is executing when.