Question

My php function does not recognize a variable defined in another php file that is included in within the same file. dbconnect.php makes a database connect. add_user.php has the add_user function which uses that database connection $dbco. I get an error message saying that $dbco is not defined for this function call: mysql_select_db("luxcal", $dbco); This must be something very obvious, but I don’t know what is happening.

dbconnect.php

---

<?php
    $dbco = mysql_connect("localhost","myuser","mypassword");
    if (!$dbco)
    {
        die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
    }
?>

add_user.php

---

<?php include("dbconnect.php"); ?>

<?php
ini_set('display_errors', 1);
error_reporting(E_ALL);

function add_user($username, $email, $password_text, $copasswd_text) {

    $password = md5($password_text);
    $copasswd = md5($password_text);
    $privPost = 1; // 3: max.
    $privSedit = 0;

    mysql_select_db("luxcal", $dbco);

    $q_add_user = "INSERT INTO users (`user_name`, `email`, `password`) VALUES ( '".mysql_real_escape_string($username)."', '".mysql_real_escape_string($email)."', '$password' )";
    $r_add_user = mysql_query($q_add_user);

    return;
}

echo add_user(trim($_REQUEST['uname']), trim($_REQUEST['uemail']), trim($_REQUEST['upass']), trim($_REQUEST['cpass']));

?>

Answer 1

The variable $dbco is not available in the function add_user because it is not in the variable scope of the function.

You can access it by adding global $dbco; inside the add_user function to make it available, or you can use $GLOBALS['dbco'] instead.

Try:

function add_user($username, $email, $password_text, $copasswd_text) {
    global $dbco;
    // rest of code...
}

Variables defined outside of functions are not available inside the function unless you pass them in or use global. Similarly, a variable defined in a function is not available outside the function (and is freed when the function returns).