Invalid EE conditional variable error - UPDATED

Question

NEW INFO OK, I found that the error was being thrown by a custom exception built into expression engine that will do partial matches on variable names if it doesn't find the original one.

From libraries/Functions.php:

// There is a partial variable match being done
// because they are doing something like segment_11
// when there is no such variable but there is a segment_1
// echo  $x[$j]."\n<br />\n";
trigger_error('Invalid EE Conditional Variable: '.$matches[0][$i], E_USER_WARNING);

This code is part of a loop, essentially. We do have a variable called deal, which in certain cases evaluates to N (the element that's being processed by the template is not a deal). The error is only being thrown in cases where there is no deal_original_price (i.e. on rows that are not deals). I don't know why it's even trying to evaluate that, though, because the entire call is inside another conditional that only runs if deal is Y.

{if deal == "Y" AND coupon == "N"}
    <tr data-deal_id="{deal_id}">
        <td class="productPrice" style="vertical-align: top;">${deal_total}<br />
            {if deal_original_price && deal_original_price != "" && deal_original_price <> deal_total}
                <span class="originalDealPrice">${deal_original_price}</span><br /><span id="modal_change">Why is there a price difference?</span>
            {if:else}
                <span id="modal_same">Pricing Terms & Conditions</span>
            {/if}
        </td>
    </tr>
{/if}

Any ideas?

=====================================================================

I have the following html with embedded ee variable:

<td class="productPrice">${deal_total}<br />{if deal_original_price != ""}<span class="originalDealPrice">${deal_original_price}</span><br /><span class="removeItem"></span>{/if}</td>  

It works, to some extent - it is displaying the correct value for deal_original_price. But when I check my error logs, I see this:

[06-May-2013 10:50:12] PHP User Warning: Invalid EE Conditional Variable: {if "N"original"$1.50" != ""} in C:\gitRepo\qo5phi\system\expressionengine\libraries\Functions.php on line 2843

(Here's what it actually looks like; SE is interpreting the ascii code for the dollar sign.)

I'm new to EE; can anyone tell me what this means? (I realize it's just a warning, not a fatal error, but we're trying to clean up our code and don't want to do anything that throws warnings.)

ETA

[06-May-2013 11:07:47] PHP Parse error:  syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in C:\gitRepo\qo5phi\system\expressionengine\libraries\Functions.php(680) : eval()'d code on line 194
[06-May-2013 11:07:47] PHP Stack trace:
[06-May-2013 11:07:47] PHP   1. {main}() C:\gitRepo\qo5phi\index.php:0
[06-May-2013 11:07:47] PHP   2. require_once() C:\gitRepo\qo5phi\index.php:188
[06-May-2013 11:07:47] PHP   3. call_user_func_array() C:\gitRepo\qo5phi\system\codeigniter\system\core\CodeIgniter.php:311
[06-May-2013 11:07:47] PHP   4. EE->index() C:\gitRepo\qo5phi\system\codeigniter\system\core\CodeIgniter.php:311
[06-May-2013 11:07:47] PHP   5. EE_Core->generate_page() C:\gitRepo\qo5phi\system\expressionengine\controllers\ee.php:68
[06-May-2013 11:07:47] PHP   6. EE_Template->run_template_engine() C:\gitRepo\qo5phi\system\expressionengine\libraries\Core.php:643
[06-May-2013 11:07:47] PHP   7. EE_Template->fetch_and_parse() C:\gitRepo\qo5phi\system\expressionengine\libraries\Template.php:179
[06-May-2013 11:07:47] PHP   8. EE_Template->parse() C:\gitRepo\qo5phi\system\expressionengine\libraries\Template.php:231
[06-May-2013 11:07:47] PHP   9. EE_Template->advanced_conditionals() C:\gitRepo\qo5phi\system\expressionengine\libraries\Template.php:488
[06-May-2013 11:07:47] PHP  10. EE_Template->parse_template_php() C:\gitRepo\qo5phi\system\expressionengine\libraries\Template.php:3153
[06-May-2013 11:07:47] PHP  11. EE_Functions->evaluate() C:\gitRepo\qo5phi\system\expressionengine\libraries\Template.php:1579

Answer 1

You should use quotes with variable in condition to match string like:

<td class="productPrice">
    ${deal_total}<br />
    {if "{deal_original_price}" != ""}
        <span class="originalDealPrice">
            ${deal_original_price}
        </span><br />
        <span class="removeItem"></span>
    {/if}
</td> 

Answer 2

Another short & sweet way to write the conditional is:

{if deal_original_price}STUFF HERE{/if}