PHP Array issue when looping and echoing - php

Question

I'm having trouble getting the array to work right, let me show you the code here
function scanArray(){
$al = sizeof($_userLoaders);
echo $al. "<br />";
for ($tr = 0; $tr <= $al; $tr++) {
echo "value: " .$tr. "<br />";
echo $_userLoaders[$tr];
}
}
//Fetch user's loaders.
$_userLoaders;
function get_user_loaders(){
$con = connectToMySQL();//connects to my_sql
mysql_select_db("my_database", $con);//connect database
$t = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM someTable
WHERE value_a=".$_SESSION['value_a']." AND value_b=someValue");
$x= 0;
//lets loop through the results and create an array to compare later.
while ($result = mysql_fetch_array($t)){
$_userLoaders[$x] = $result['value_c'];
$x++;
}
//lets get all the options for
print_r($_userLoaders);//this part prints what it should
scanArray();
}
okay, I minimized the code above to show you what's going on. Pretty much function get_user_loaders() works great. It fetches data from a table in a database, and returns what it should. Second, it makes an array out of it. Again, this part works great. When the print_r() method is called it prints what it should, here's an example of what it prints:
Array ( [0] => tableValue )
yes, at this point it only has one value, please note that this value can vary from no values to 100 values which is why I am using an array. In this case, i'm testing it with one value.
Now, once I call scanArray() It doesn't echo the values.
the scanArray() function echoes the following:
0
value:
so what I don't understand is why does it print it out, but it doesn't display the function? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Your problem is that $_userLoaders variable is declared outside the function and function scanArray knows nothing about it. You need to either pass that variable in as a parameter:
function scanArray($_userLoaders) {
...
}
with the call at the end being
scanArray($_userLoaders);
or alternatively declare the variable as global inside the function:
function scanArray($_userLoaders) {
global $_userLoaders;
...
}

Answer 2

That would be because $_userLoaders is not equal to anything inside your scanArray() function. While it's not good practice, you can add the line:
global $_userLoaders;
to your scanArray() function and every other function that uses that global variable then, and it should work.