Question

My function goes something like this

function multiple_delete($checkbox, $table, $url, $picture1 = 0, $picture2 = 0, $picture3 = 0){
    $count = count($checkbox);
for($j=0;$j<$count;$j++)
    {
    $delete_id = $checkbox[$j];
    $query = "SELECT * FROM $table WHERE id = '$delete_id'";
    $result = mysql_query($query);
    $row = mysql_fetch_array($result);
    return true;

if( $picture1 !== 0 && $picture2 !== 0 && $picture3 !== 0) 
    {
    $pic_1 = $picture1;
    $pic_2 = $picture2;
    $pic_3 = $picture3;
    unlink($pic_1);
    unlink($pic_2);
    unlink($pic_3);
    return true;
    }
if( $picture1 !== 0 && $picture2 !== 0 && $picture3 == 0 ) 
    {
    $pic_1 = $picture1;
    $pic_2 = $picture2;
    unlink($pic_1);
    unlink($pic_2); 
    return true;  
    }
    }

    for($i=0;$i<$count;$i++)   {
    $del_id = $checkbox[$i];
    $sql = "DELETE FROM $table WHERE id='$del_id'";
    $result_delete_data = mysql_query($sql);
    }
    alert('Deleted Successfully');
    redirect_url($url);
    return true;
    }

In the above function if the first or second condition returns true, then will it continue over the for loop below or it will simply halt the script ?

If return true will halt the script then

EDIT: Is it ok if I remove the return statement from the if conditions? And is it necessary for us to define the return statement in a user defined function?

Answer 1

Any time you use return its going to halt the execution of the function and return. I think you may be looking for continue and/or break. Also why do all this with separate queries? I would:

1. Use a SELECT...WHERE...IN to grab ALL the matching records for images.
2. Loop through those records and delete the files, putting the primary key values of the images deleted in a second array.
3. Use a DELETE...WHERE...IN query to kill all the records.

That way you only hit the db twice. It might look something like the following:

function multiple_delete($checkbox, $table, $url, $picture1 = 0, $picture2 = 0, $picture3 = 0){
    $count = count($checkbox);
    $select = sprintf('SELECT * FROM %s WHERE id IN (%s)', $table, implode(',',$checkbox));
    $imagesResult = mysql_query($select);
    $deletes = array();
    while(false !== ($record = mysql_fetch_array($imagesResult))
    {

      if( $picture1 !== 0 && $picture2 !== 0 && $picture3 !== 0) 
      {
        $pic_1 = $picture1;
        $pic_2 = $picture2;
        $pic_3 = $picture3;
        unlink($pic_1);
        unlink($pic_2);
        unlink($pic_3);
        continue;
      }
      if( $picture1 !== 0 && $picture2 !== 0 && $picture3 == 0 ) 
      {
        $pic_1 = $picture1;
        $pic_2 = $picture2;
        unlink($pic_1);
        unlink($pic_2); 
        continue;  
      }

      $deletes[] = $record['id'];
    }

    $delete = sprintf('DELETE FROM %s WHERE id IN (%s)', $table, implode(',',$deletes));
    $result_delete_data = mysql_query($delete);

    alert('Deleted Successfully');
    redirect_url($url);

}

In the above the continue‘s are going to move you to the next iteration of the loop if the are processed… Likewise using a break instead would stop the loop completely and move on to the next code block where you delete from the DB. I’m not really sure what you’re trying to do here with the if statements that those are in… You might not even need to use continue/break… Can you could elaborate on what you actually need to do?

The last bit beyond the database stuff doesn’t make sense either… I assume your redirect function does something with header to send them to another page… and if that’s the case your function is going to stop when that happens so it doesn’t make sense to return any kind of result. Then you do an alert and I don’t know what you’ve made that do either but I assume it adds the message to a session variable for the page redirect sends them to?