MySQLi - declaring variable after bind_param?

Question

This may be a completely dumb question, but I've seen a couple examples declaring the variables AFTER putting them in bind_param:
http://devzone.zend.com/article/686

I've never seen this done before and all my programming knowledge says I should define them before hand. Is this a valid/preferred way?

Answer 1

This is possible, because what gets bound is a reference to the variable in question, but I find it horribly bad style:

• It makes code harder to read, maintain and debug - the variable could be changed further down the line, or even in other functions called in between the binding and the query.

• Binding a variable before declaring it will throw an E_NOTICE message (No it doesn't. Cheers @webbiedave)

If you ask me, a query should be built in one place, and then executed straight away, for the sake of future readability.