Shortcode displaying at top of wordpress page - php

Question

I have a page that displays my members information from a sql database. I have the output in the form of a shortcode but the information is displaying above the page content even though the shortcode is placed at the very bottom of the text editor. I know the problem is due to this code echoing instead of returning but I am a newbie to php and need help with syntax.
function listMembers() {
$sql1=mysql_query("select state_id,state_name from ".TABLE_STATE);
while($row1=mysql_fetch_assoc($sql1))
{
?> <a href="#" onclick="getDetails(
<?php echo $row1["state_id"];?>)"> <?php echo $row1["state_name"]; ?>
Here is all of the code
$sql1=mysql_query("select state_id,state_name from ".TABLE_STATE);
while($row1=mysql_fetch_assoc($sql1))
{
?> <?php echo $row1["state_name"]; ?> <?php
}
?><br/><br/><div id="resultDiv"></div><?php
}
add_shortcode('memberlist', 'listMembers');
function listRescueStandards() {
$display_members = '';
$sql = mysql_query("SELECT vc.*, s.*, m.*
FROM ".TABLE_COMPLIANCE." vc, ".TABLE_STATE." s, ".TABLE_MEMBERS." m
WHERE vc.member_id = m.cid
AND m.status = '1'
AND m.state = s.state_abbr
ORDER BY m.state, m.organization ASC");
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($sql)) {
$organization = stripslashes($row['organization']);
if ($row['website']) {
$link = "<a href='http://".$row['website']."' target='_blank'>";
$endlink = "</a>";
} else {
$link = "";
$endlink = "";
}
if($x!=$row['state_name']){
$display_members .= "<br /><strong>".strtoupper($row['state_name'])."</strong><br />";
$x = $row['state_name'];
}
$display_members .= $link.$organization.$endlink."<br />
".stripslashes($row['address'])." ".stripslashes($row['address2'])."<br />
".stripslashes($row['city']).", ".stripslashes($row['state'])." ".$row['zip']."<br />";
if ($row['contact_name']) $display_members .= "Contact: ".stripslashes($row['contact_name']);
if ($row['contact_title']) $display_members .= ", ".stripslashes($row['contact_title']);
if ($row['phone']) $display_members .= "<br />Tel: ".stripslashes($row['phone']);
if ($row['fax']) $display_members .= "<br />Fax: ".stripslashes($row['fax']);
if ($row['email']) $display_members .= "<br />".$row['email'];
if ($row['website']) $display_members .= "<br /><a href='http://".$row['website']."' target='_blank'>".$row['website']."</a>";
if ($row['year_est']) $display_members .= "<br />Founded in ".$row['year_est'].".";
if ($row['org501c3'] == "1") $display_members .= "<br />This organization IS registered with the IRS as a 501(c)3.";
if ($row['org501c3'] != "1") $display_members .= "<br />This organization is NOT registered with the IRS as a 501(c)3.";
$display_members .= "<br /><br />";
}
return "<div class='memberlist'>" . $display_members . "</div>";
}
add_shortcode('standardslist', 'listRescueStandards');
?>
Thank you in advance for your help! I appreciate anyone looking at this and if you need clarification, please let me know!

Answer 1

Ah OK. according the shortcodes api you want to be returning a value, not echoing it. you can use output buffering to convert an echo type of code to a return type. This entails simply wrapping all of your echo statements in ob_start() and ob_end_clean()
function listMembers() {
$sql1=mysql_query("select state_id,state_name from ".TABLE_STATE);
ob_start(); //send all future echo statements to the buffer instead of output
while($row1=mysql_fetch_assoc($sql1))
{
?> <?php echo $row1["state_name"]; ?> <?php
}
?><br/><br/><div id="resultDiv"></div><?php
$result=ob_get_clean(); //capture the buffer into $result
return $result; //return it, instead of echoing
}