Call to a member function prepare() on a non-object in - php

Question

I'm trying to create a search feature on my website. It isn't showing any results and I keep getting Call to a member function prepare() on a non-object in line x...
function doSearch() {
$output = '';
if(isset($_POST['search'])) {
$searchq = $_POST['search'];
$searchq = preg_replace ("#[^0-9a-z]#i","",$searchq);
$sql = "SELECT * FROM entries WHERE name LIKE :searchq or description LIKE :searchq or content LIKE :searchq";
$stmt = $conn->prepare($sql);
$stmt->bindParam(":searchq",$searchq,PDO::PARAM_STR);
$stmt->execute();
$count = $stmt->rowCount();
if($count == 0) {
$output = '<tr><tr>No results found.</tr></td>';
} else {
while($row = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
$eName = $row['name'];
$eDesc = $row['description'];
$eCont = $row['content'];
$id = $row['id'];
$elvl = $row['level'];
$ehp = $row['hp'];
$output .= '<tr><td>'.$eName.'</td><td>'.$eDesc.'</td><td>'.$elvl.'</td><td>'.$ehp.'</td></tr>';
}
}
return $output;
}
}
I have my PDO connection included in my functions.php file.

Answer 1

prepare() is a method of a PDO connection object, and your $conn variable is not one. It needs to be instantiated as a connection object, like this:
$conn = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=database', 'user', 'password');
Or if that's already done somewhere in the "global" scope, you just need to declare in your function:
global $conn;
It's fine to do this. The declaration is misleading. It's only "global" in the scope of the executing script, and does not transcend the script execution. All such objects are destroyed at the end of script execution. It's nothing to do with the session.

Answer 2

should be like:
$sql = "SELECT * FROM entries
WHERE name LIKE :searchq or
description LIKE :searchq or
content LIKE :searchq";
global $conn;
$stmt = $conn->prepare($sql);
Make sure you have included the db configuration file.