Question

Can someone please explain the most efficient method to return a value from within a while loop, for use before the while loop initiated.
Tried the following-

echo $var1;
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($query1)){
    $var1 = $row[0];
}

Returns unset variable.

I also tried:

$var1= 1;
echo $var1;
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($query1)){
    global $var1;    
    $var1 = $row[0];
}

Just echos 1.

Answer 1

This may sound strange, but is your echo before or after the while loop? In your above example, you show it to us as being before the loop – and we wouldn’t expect that to show much.