Question

Database Table company_info

-----------------------------
| companyname | companytype |
-----------------------------
| Company One | Blah        |
-----------------------------
| Company Two | Blah2       |
-----------------------------

Database Table invoice_template

-----------------------------
| Header      | bgcolor     |
-----------------------------
| $company    | Red         |
-----------------------------
| $company    | Biege       |
-----------------------------

PHP file common_include.php

$company = ... //FROM db table company_info field companyname

PHP file invoice.php

include('common_include.php');
$header = ... //FROM db table invoice_template field header
echo "Header is ". $header;
echo "<br/>Company is ". $company; //$company is defined in common_include.php

OUTPUT of invoice.php when company logged in is for eg.Company One

Header is $company
Company is Company One

Question: How do I get the $company in the output to be shown as Company one? i.e How do I get the output from MySQL DB to be treated as a variable?

Answer 1

The solution would be eval("echo $header"), although you should NEVER EVER want to resort to such solutions. You should -in my opinion- move all company related data into the database.

Update
You shouldn’t put $company in your database. Relational databases should be relational. That means, primary keys and foreign keys. Data should then be looked up by it’s relation. See also how an ORM would work in this situation:

echo $invoice_template->getCompany()->getName();