PDO skip if statement - php

Question

im going to insane here, why he jump to else and return false all the time.
i dont understand what im doing wrong.
try
{
$query = 'SELECT userID, firstname, surname, email FROM jinx_users WHERE email = :email AND password = :password';
$this->dbh->beginTransaction();
$stmt = $this->dbh->prepare($query);
$stmt->bindParam(':email', $email, PDO::PARAM_STR);
$stmt->bindParam(':password', $password, PDO::PARAM_STR);
$stmt->execute();
if($row = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
return true;
}else{
return false;
}
$stmt = null;
}
catch (Exception $e)
{
$stmt = null;
$this->dbh->rollback();
exit();
}

Answer 1

The if statement is not a valid statement. Apart from that the Try Catch should be used to check if the database can succesfully be called or params can be set etc. Inside a try/catch you want to avoid return true or false. So with that being said I think what you want is the following:
try {
$query = 'SELECT userID, firstname, surname, email FROM jinx_users WHERE email = :email AND password = :password';
$this->dbh->beginTransaction();
$stmt = $this->dbh->prepare($query);
$stmt->bindParam(':email', $email, PDO::PARAM_STR);
$stmt->bindParam(':password', $password, PDO::PARAM_STR);
$stmt->execute();
} catch (Exception $e) {
var_dump($e->getMessage();
die();
}
if($stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
return true;
} else {
return false;
}