Question

I guess I have a little understanding about functions and how they work.. Idea is to get “user’s group” from database, but I don’t want to write the code evey time when I need it so I decided to put it in function.

function get_role()
{
 $user_id = $_SESSION['login_ok'];
 $res = mysql_query('SELECT role FROM users WHERE id = "'.$user_id.'"') or mysql_error();
 $row = mysql_fetch_array($res);
 $role = $row['role'];
}

and then when I need it

get_role();

What I need is $role variable which I will use in if() to grant access to smth. But when I do so, it shows that $role is Undefined variable (when I do that checking with if).

Sorry for probably dumb questions but what am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Add return $role; to the end of your function.

You then can do $role = get_role(); where you call the function.

The reason your code is not working is called variable scope. The $role variable you are creating is only available within the function.

By adding the code above, you return the value of $role from your function and assign it to a local variable where you called the function.

You could also declare $role as global which will make it available everywhere, but this is considered a very bad practice.