Hi, I'm having some problems with accessing the results from a MySQL database. This script is the edit page of a news script. If gets the existing news from the database and puts it into a form. However whenever I add the line:

$row = mysql_fetch_row($result)

I get the following error message.

Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in /home/sites/site69/web/church/editnews.php on line 53

I'm quite new to PHP and just can't figure this one out. The code I'm using is shown below. I have blanked the MySQL username and password fields so they aren't the problem. I hope you can help.


<?

// Define database connection details

$dbHost = "localhost";
$dbUser = "*****";
$dbPass = "*****";
$dbName = "news";
$table = "news";

// Attempt to connect the the MySQL server

$link = @mysql_connect($dbHost, $dbUser, $dbPass);

// If the connection was unsuccessful

if (!$link)

{ // Report error and exit

echo "<P>Couldn't connect to server</P>";
exit;

}

// Attempt to select database. If unsuccessful....

if (!@mysql_select_db($dbName))

{ // Report error and exit

echo "<P>Could not select $dbName database</P>";
exit;

}

// Build query to fetch news item from database

$query = "SELECT * FROM news WHERE newsID=$newsID";

// Execute query

$result = @mysql_query($query);

// If query was okay AND we have returned a result

if ($result && @mysql_num_rows($result) > 0)

{ // Start building the HTML form

$row = mysql_fetch_row($result)

$newsText = "";
$newsText .= "<FORM METHOD='POST' ACTION='addnews.php'>";

// Add a hidden field to hold the newsID

$newsText .= "<INPUT TYPE='HIDDEN' NAME='newsID' VALUE=" . $row['newsID'] . ">";

// Add username and password fields

$newsText .= "<BR>Username:";
$newsText .= "<BR><INPUT TYPE='TEXT' NAME='username'>";
$newsText .= "<BR>Password:";
$newsText .= "<BR><INPUT TYPE='PASSWORD' NAME='password'>";

// Retrieve the title from the database

$newsText .= "<BR>Title:";
$newsText .= "<BR><INPUT TYPE='TEXT' NAME='title' VALUE=" . stripslashes($row['title']) . ">";

// Retrieve the author from the database

$newsText .= "<BR>Author:";
$newsText .= "<BR><INPUT TYPE='TEXT' NAME='author' VALUE=" . $row['author'] . ">";

// Retrieve the body from the database

$newsText .= "<BR>Body:";
$newsText .= "<BR><TEXTAREA NAME='body' ROWS='5'>";
$newsText .= stripslashes($row['body']);
$newsText .= "</TEXTAREA>";

// Add submit button

$newsText .= "<BR><BR><INPUT TYPE='SUBMIT' VALUE='Submit'></FORM>";

// Output the form

echo "$newsText";

}

else

{ // If no news items were found

echo "<P>That news item does not appear to be in the database</P>";

}

// Close link to MYSQL server

mysql_close($link);

?>

Dajjal,

First, could you identify which line is line 53?

I looked through your code and the first thing that jumped out at me is that your SQL query is dependent on the variable $newsID, but it is not previously defined anywhere. Without knowing which line is 53, I would say that is the likely problem if this is the entire code.

Hope this helps....

Kyrnt

Hi, the variable newsID is passed in from another PHP document. Thanks for your help but I think I've fixed it.
I always try to use:

$row = mysql_fetch_row($result)

to filter threw any results, however for some reason this didn't work. So after ages of trawling threw my PHP book I found an alternative

$row = mysql_fetch_array($result)

I don't know why the first one doesn't work. I'd appreciate it if anyone could point out the differences between these two functions. Thanks

Originally Posted by Dajjal

I'd appreciate it if anyone could point out the differences between these two functions. Thanks

mysql_fetch_row() fetches a row of data from a result handle and returns it as a numerically keyed array.

mysql_fetch_array() fetches a row of data as an array from a result handle. The default behavior for this function is to return an array that is both associative and numerically indexed.

I also don't see any reason why the mysql_fetch_row() does not work -- but again, if we knew which line was line 53, that might help.

Kyrnt

Row 53 was the row with the line:

$row = mysql_fetch_row($result)

Think I know why it didn't work, I was using $row['thing'] which of course would define row as an array, therefore I would have to pass in an array for it to work. Tell me if this makes any sense, and thanks for all your help.

Can you add the semicolon?

$row = mysql_fetch_row($result);

Originally Posted by Dajjal

Think I know why it didn't work, I was using $row['thing'] which of course would define row as an array, therefore I would have to pass in an array for it to work. Tell me if this makes any sense, and thanks for all your help.

That's definitely possible -- probable in fact. I supposed that if you wanted to use numerical indices to access the result of the array returned by the call mysql_fetch_row($result), that would have worked fine....

Awesome.

I think the associate array (using column names to access array elements coming out of mysql_fetch_array($result)) is more intuitive anyway, but it's good to figure these things out anyway.

Thanks for the follow-up.

Kyrnt