PHP 8.1 error Profile view articles

[Bopske]

Access the my articles page from the profile:

https://localhost/vanilla/index.php?action=profile;area=tparticles;u=3
C:/xampp/htdocs/vanilla/Sources/TPSubs.php (Line 2808)

Notice
: explode(): Passing null to parameter #2 ($string) of type string is deprecated in
C:\xampp\htdocs\vanilla\Sources\TPSubs.php
on line
2808

code

2804:	if($smcFunc'db_num_rows' > 0){
2805:	while($row = $smcFunc'db_fetch_assoc') {
2806:	$rat = array();
2807:	$rating_votes = 0;
==>2808:	$rat = explode(',', $row['rating']);
2809:	$rating_votes = count($rat);
2810:	if($row['rating'] == '') {
2811:	$rating_votes = 0;
2812:	}

[Bopske]

solution?

$rat = explode(',', (string)$row['rating']);

or

$rat = explode(',', $row['rating'] ?? ' ');

which one is better?
note: must m=be supported from PHP7.0.0 onwards

[tinoest]

$rat = !is_null($row['rating']) ? explode(',', $row['rating']) : 0;

[Bopske]

$rat = !is_null($row['rating']) ? explode(',', $row['rating']) : 0;

I used this,

$rat = explode(',', $row['rating'] ?? ' ');

?? is supported from PHP7.0.
Do you see any issues with that?

[tinoest]

I personally can’t see an issue today, if PHP decide to throw a error on an empty string it will.

I’ve done it the way I put in other places so consistency should be we do one or the other. I personally don’t like having conditionals inside functions as it can be harder to track down an error, but functionally your way will work.