Illegal offset with simple mysqli read query - php

Question

This is driving me crazy. The page I'm trying to create is to read from a mysql DB and then create a JSON object to return to an Angular app. Please bear with the inserted code blocks, it's all pertinent.
The overall question is this: Why am I getting the offset warnings for 'definition' and 'type' from the $term array, but not the others?
$definition = $term['definition']; (line 31)
$type = $term['type']; (line 33)
I did notice that each time it loops through the array, the values it outputs for both definition and type are the first letter of the term. So if the term is "Third Party Charges", then the definition and type both still get warnings but are assigned the value equal to left($term, 1).
Since there is a lot down there, specifically these two lines cause the warnings:
But these work fine:
$caseName = $term['caseName'];
$caseNumber = $term['caseNumber'];
$term = $term['term'];
Thanks for all help. I'm sure it being so late/early has something to do with this not making sense to me.
Here is the PHP:
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "user", "pw", "db")
or die('Error connecting to the db.');
//Check for connection to database
if ($mysqli->errno) {
printf("Unable to conect to the database: %s" ,$mysqli->error);
exit();
}
$query = "Select dd.caseName, dd.caseNumber, dd.term, dd.definition, dd.type
From `ddMain` dd";
$termlist = $mysqli->query($query, MYSQLI_STORE_RESULT)
or die("Uh oh.");
while($term = $termlist->fetch_array(MYSQL_ASSOC)) {
echo "<pre>";
var_dump($term);
echo "</pre>";
$caseName = $term['caseName'];
echo "CaseName: " . $caseName . "<br />";
$caseNumber = $term['caseNumber'];
echo "CaseNumber: " . $caseNumber . "<br />";
$term = $term['term'];
echo "Term: " . $term . "<br />";
$definition = $term['definition'];
echo "Definition: " . $definition . "<br />";
$type = $term['type'];
echo "Type: " . $type . "<br />";
printf("Nm: %s, #: %s, term: %s, def: %s, type: %s", $caseName, $caseNumber, $term, $definition, $type);
}
Here is the output from the var_dump of $term:
array(5) {
["caseName"]=>
string(10) "Case name here"
["caseNumber"]=>
string(6) "123456"
["term"]=>
string(13) "Doughnut Hole"
["definition"]=>
string(168) "Some text here."
["type"]=>
string(8) "Business"
}
And finally the output of the loop up there:
CaseName: Case name here
CaseNumber: 123456
Term: Doughnut Hole
Warning: Illegal string offset 'definition' in C:\xampp\htdocs\path\file.php on line 31
Definition: D
Warning: Illegal string offset 'type' in C:\xampp\htdocs\path\file.php on line 33
Type: D
Nm: Case name here, #: 123456, term: Doughnut Hole, def: D, type: D

Answer 1

$term = $term['term'];
It's because that particular line is changing $term to something other than the database row. You're using $term for both the returned array from the database and one of the values extracted from it. Use a different name for one of them and your problem will be solved.
One possibility is to change:
$term = $term['term'];
echo "Term: " . $term . "<br />";
to something like:
$term2 = $term['term'];
echo "Term: " . $term2 . "<br />";