Question

This is pretty straight forward.
EDIT: Updated question and added fourth echo.

Here is PHP code:

<?php

$ratings="3";
$item="Inception";

$query="SELECT * FROM items WHERE item = '". $item ."' LIMIT 1";

echo $query;

echo "<br />";

$result=mysql_query($query);

echo $result;

echo "<br />";

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) { 
    $item_id = $row['item_id'];
    echo $item_id;
    echo "<br />";
 }  

  $query_two = "INSERT INTO ratings (rating, item_id), VALUES (' {$ratings} ', ' {$item_id} ')";

  echo $query_two;
  $sql = mysql_query($query_two);
  mysql_close();
?>

Here is web output with all the echo’s:

SELECT * FROM items WHERE item = 'Inception' LIMIT 1
Resource id #7


INSERT INTO ratings (rating, item_id), VALUES (' 3 ', ' ')

How come my $item_id is blank? (third row underneath Resource id)

Answer 1

This part of code produces it:

$result=mysql_query($query);

echo $result;

It shows Resource... because it is of resource type, it’s just a sort of special handler for query, it’s not like normal type (string or int for example), so it has nothing readable to print.

If you want to print data from query then you must firstly fetch it.

Also note that those mysql_* functions are deprecated, it is discouraged to use them. Note from php manual:

Use of this extension is discouraged. Instead, the MySQLi or PDO_MySQL
extension should be used. See also MySQL: choosing an API guide and
related FAQ for more information. Alternatives to this function
include:

mysqli_query()

PDO::query()