How do I initialize a PHP variable?
<p>I am fairly new to PHP (less than a year), and to improve my development environment, I recently started using NetBeans IDE.</p>

<p>A warning keeps popping up everywhere stating that <strong>"Variable might not have been initialized"</strong>. </p>

<p>I'll give an example of a variable that results in this hint/warning:</p>

<pre><code>$start = $per_page * $page;
</code></pre>

<p><strong>My question is: How can I initialize a PHP variable? Also, how important is it that a variable is initialized in PHP?</strong> </p>

<p>I appreciate any advice you can provide.</p>

<p><em>Note: I tried to place the following code above my variable, to no avail.</em></p>

<pre><code>$start = '';
</code></pre>
