My array won't echo a value for some reason - php

Question

I have a database that holds thousands of structures. The structures are searchable by choosing the "area" first, then selecting the "block_number". My first page allows the user to select the area, the area is then passed through the url to the next page. The next page uses php to pull up the blocks in that area. I'm trying to echo the "area" and "block_number" in the results. The my query works just fine but, for some reason I can't display the "area" in the results. See the code below.
<?
include("conn.php");
include("pl_header.php");
$area = mysql_real_escape_string($_GET['area']);
$wtf = '$area';
?>
<h3>Choose A Block Number in<br> <?=$area?></h3><br>
<center>
<?php
$tblWidth = 1;
$sql = mysql_query("SELECT DISTINCT block_number FROM platform_locations WHERE area='$area'");
$i = 1;
// Check to see if any results were returned
if(mysql_num_rows($sql) > 0){
echo '<div class="redBox extraIndent">';
// Loop through the results
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql)){
echo ''. $row['area'] .''. $row['block_number'] .'';
if($i == $tblWidth){
echo '';
$i = 0;
}
$i++;
}
echo '';
}else{
echo '<br>Sorry No Results';
}
?>
</div>
</body>
</html>
My issue is where you see '. $row['area'] .' displays nothing, but the '. $row['block_number'] .' works just fine.

Answer 1

Your query is only selecting block_number.
Try changing:
$sql = mysql_query("SELECT DISTINCT block_number FROM platform_locations WHERE area='$area'");
To:
$sql = mysql_query("SELECT DISTINCT block_number, area FROM platform_locations WHERE area='$area'");
Edit: If you have this issue in the future try var_dump($row); to see what the array contains. This would show you that you only have access to the block_number and not the area.
Double edit: I didn't notice, but the other answer is right about the $area var- you've already got the $area saved, use that variable instead of the return from the DB as it's already in memory. If this could change per record, it'd be prudent to use the record's area variable to make your code more reusable. However, in this particular case, your SQL statement has the area in the where clause, so it wont vary unless you attempt to use portions of this code elsewhere.

Answer 2

Your SQL query is only selecting block_number, so that's the only field that will be in the $row array. You've already got area as a variable $area so use that, not $row['area'].