Question

I’m trying to clean up my code and I was wondering if I can place my mysql query that I call several times into an external php function that I include at the top of the file. Everytime I have tried it I have received an error, so I am wondering if it has something to do with my still being relatively new to php. It all works until I place the code in a new file (functions.php)

Here are some snippets:

This is from the page to be displayed

<?php
    retreive_user_data();
    while ($result = mysql_fetch_array($queryobj)) {
        echo $result['about'];
    }
?>

And here is the php file I’m including

<?php 
    function retrieve_user_data() {                                 
        $query = "SELECT * FROM users, editables WHERE users.user = editables.user";
        $queryobj = mysql_query($query);
        return $queryobj;
    }
?>

Answer 1

Change;

retreive_user_data();

To:

$queryobj = retreive_user_data();

Some other notes:

The mysql functions are depreciated, switch to mysqli.

If you use them, use mysql_fetch_assoc() not mysql_fetch_array().

Condense retrieve_user_data() to one line:

function retrieve_user_data() {                                 
  return mysql_query("SELECT * FROM users, editables WHERE users.user = editables.user");
}

Your query style is also depreciated. Change it to:

SELECT * FROM users JOIN editables USING user

PS. Try to find some more modern tutorials to learn from. Look for use of mysqli – that’s a good signal it’s reasonably new.