Question

I have the following code which creates an array.

$qry="SELECT foo_id, foo1, foo2 FROM foo_table";
$result=mysql_query($qry);

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)){
extract($row);  
$my_array[$foo_id] = array('foo1' => $foo1, 'foo2'  => $foo2);
}

If I save this in a separate file (array.php) and then ‘include’ this in my code (example 1) everything works fine and $my_array can be called fine. If however I set this code up as a function (example 2) and call it from within my code and then try and use the array I get the message that $my_array has not been defined.

example 1 – displays the array

include 'array.php';
var_dump($my_array[1]);

example 2 – gets the error message Undefined variable: $my_array

function create_array(){
  $qry="SELECT foo_id, foo1, foo2 FROM foo_table";
  $result=mysql_query($qry);

  while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)){
  extract($row);    
  $my_array[$foo_id] = array('foo1' => $foo1, 'foo2'  => $foo2);
  }
}

create_array();
var_dump($my_array[1]);

Am I doing something fundamentally wrong? I’m a bit new to php so simple explanations would be appreciated!!

Thanks

Answer 1

$my_array being defined inside a function, doesn’t exists outside that function.

Try add return $my_array; in create_arry() function.

Then call the function like this: $my_array = create_arry();, to store data returned by that funnction in $my_array variable.