Cannot retrieve name from Users database (mysql) using PHP - php

Question

I'm trying to display a "Welcome back, <name>." to my blog when I log in back. I'm using php to access the database, get the name and last name of the username currently in $_SESSION['username'], and then print it back in the index.
So the function to query the database is:
function get_full_name($username){
$real = array();
$query = mysql_query("SELECT `name`, `last` FROM `users` WHERE `user` = `{$username}`");
$row = mysql_num_rows($query);
foreach($row as $k => $v)
{
$real[$k] = $v;
}
return $real;
}
Then the part of the html where it calls the function above:
<div id="menu">
<?php
$temp = $_SESSION['username'];
$real[] = get_full_name($temp);
if(isset($_SESSION['username']))
{
echo '<br />'.'Welcome back, '. $real['name'] . '.';
}
?>
</div>
The output of the above codes is:
Welcome back, .
var_dump($real) gives:
array(1) { [0]=> array(0) { } }
var_dump($real) after changing to mysql_fectch_assoc:
array(0) { }
Fixed: The error was not using the single quotes ' {$username} '
By changing them, it worked like a charm, cheers to all!

Answer 1

Curiously you are using mysql_num_rows to get the results of your query. This will only return the number of rows. You'll be better off using mysql_fetch_assoc to get the associative array of results.
You also need to change your backticks to single quotes around {$username} in the query.
Something like:
function get_full_name($username){
$real = array();
$query = mysql_query("SELECT `name`, `last` FROM `users` WHERE `user` = '{$username}'");
$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query);
foreach($row as $k => $v)
{
$real[$k] = $v;
}
return $real;
}

Answer 2

Your get_full_name() function should be like this:
function get_full_name($username) {
$real = array();
$query = mysql_query("SELECT `name`, `last`
FROM `users`
WHERE `user` = '{$username}'");
if (mysql_num_rows($query)) {
$real = mysql_fetch_assoc($query);
}
return $real;
}
Notes:
Use single quotes for the variable: '{$username}' instead of `{$username}`
Use mysql_num_rows() for checking if the result is not empty.
Use mysql_fetch_assoc() for retrieving the row.
Calling the function:
$temp = $_SESSION['username'];
$real = get_full_name($temp);
if (isset($temp) && count($real)) {
echo '<br />Welcome back, '. $real['name'] . '.';
}
Notes:
Use $real instead of $real[].
Check if $real empty with count().

Answer 3

Change this line $row = mysql_fetch_array($query);

Answer 4

Two issues I see.
1) You are using mysql_num_rows, not fetching the array of data from the database.
function get_full_name($username){
$real = array();
$query = mysql_query("SELECT `name`, `last` FROM `users` WHERE `user` = `{$username}`");
$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query);
foreach($row as $k => $v)
{
$real[$k] = $v;
}
return $real;
}
2) Looks like $real is a multi-dimention array in your code. Try this instead:
<div id="menu">
<?php
$temp = $_SESSION['username'];
$real = get_full_name($temp);
if(isset($_SESSION['username']))
{
echo '<br />'.'Welcome back, '. $real['name'] . '.';
}
?>
</div>
Notice I've removed the [] at the end of $real.

Answer 5

Use mysql_query() to get the result of running the query, then use mysql_fetch_assoc() to get individual rows.
$result = mysql_query($query);
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
{
var_dump($row);
}
Note that mysql_num_rows($result) will return the number of rows in a given result.