PHP code with a bug

[Zorg]

I'm sorry this might be pretty basic to you guys. But i need to fix this code by tomorrow and i have no clue how to do it. It was written by somebody else and I'm not very well versed in PHP. It is supposed to pull an article from a database (image and some text i believe) truncate it into a kind of a blog format and print the result to the screen. When I run it though i get an empty screen. If somebody could help I'd really appreciate it

<?php

// Function to truncate long text

function ShortenText($text) {

// Change to the number of characters you want to display
$chars = 1000;

$text = $text." ";
$text = substr($text,0,$chars);
$text = substr($text,0,strrpos($text,' '));
$text = $text." <strong>...</strong> ";

return $text;

}

// Function to close all HTML tags
function close_tags($string)
{
// match opened tags
if(preg_match_all('/<([a-z]+)[ >]/', $string, $start_tags))
{
$start_tags = $start_tags[1];

// match closed tags
if(preg_match_all('/<\/([a-z]+)>/', $string, $end_tags))
{
$complete_tags = array();
$end_tags = $end_tags[1];

foreach($start_tags as $key => $val)
{
$posb = array_search($val, $end_tags);
if(is_integer($posb))
{
unset($end_tags[$posb]);
}
else
{
$complete_tags[] = $val;
}
}
}
else
{
$complete_tags = $start_tags;
}

$complete_tags = array_reverse($complete_tags);
for($i = 0; $i < count($complete_tags); $i++)
{
$string .= '</' . $complete_tags[$i] . '>';
}
}

// Removes the </img> tag
$xhtml_tags = array("</img>", "</hr>", "</br>");
$string = str_replace($xhtml_tags, "", $string);

return $string;
}

// Random Featured Author Starts Below

define ('HOSTNAME', 'xxxx.xxxxxxx.xxxxxx');
define ('USERNAME', 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx');
define ('PASSWORD', 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx');
define ('DATABASE_NAME', 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_xxxxxxx_x');

$db = mysql_connect(HOSTNAME, USERNAME, PASSWORD) or die ('I cannot connect to MySQL.');
mysql_select_db(DATABASE_NAME);

# Enter the Archive URL from your Weblog Config and the blog ID number
$archive_url="/content/";
$entry_blog_id="1";

// The following finds the number of Authors in the database and puts the value in the variable $num_authors
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM mt_entry , mt_author , mt_placement WHERE (entry_blog_id=$entry_blog_id) and (entry_status=2) and (author_id=entry_author_id) and (entry_id=placement_entry_id) and (placement_category_id=2)");
$num_authors = mysql_num_rows($result);

//The following finds the number of Authors in the database and puts the value in the variable $num_authors
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM mt_entry , mt_author , mt_placement WHERE (entry_blog_id=$entry_blog_id) and (entry_status=2) and (author_id=entry_author_id) and (entry_id=placement_entry_id) and (placement_category_id=2)");
$num_authors = mysql_num_rows($result);
$date_seed = date("j");
$bol_found = false;

do {
if ($num_authors > $date_seed) {
$date_seed = $date_seed * 2;
}

} while ($bol_found = false);

//unfinished code


$query = "SELECT
entry_basename ,
entry_title,
entry_text,
entry_text_more,
date_format(entry_created_on, '%Y') AS year,
date_format(entry_created_on, '%m') AS month,
date_format(entry_created_on, '%M %d, %Y') AS readable_date,
entry_id,
entry_author_id,
author_id,
placement_category_id,
placement_entry_id,
author_name
FROM mt_entry , mt_author , mt_placement
WHERE (entry_blog_id=$entry_blog_id) and (entry_status=2) and (author_id=entry_author_id) and (entry_id=placement_entry_id) and (placement_category_id=2)
ORDER by rand()
LIMIT 1";

$result = mysql_query($query);

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {

$title = $row['entry_title'];
$entry = nl2br($row['entry_text']); // nl2br inserts HTML line breaks
$author = $row['author_name'];
$permalink_url = $archive_url . "authors_database/" . ($row['entry_basename']) . ".php";

$unsanitized_text = '<h1>' . ($row['entry_title']) . '</h1>' . ShortenText(nl2br($row['entry_text']));
$read_more_about = '<p><a href="' . $permalink_url . '">More about ' . ($row['entry_title']) . '</a> <strong>&raquo;&raquo;</strong></p>';
}

mysql_free_result($result);

// Print sanitized text
$sanitized_text = close_tags($unsanitized_text);
echo $sanitized_text, $read_more_about

?>

[Zorg]

Ugh I'm going nuts. I've located some code that repeats itself but I don't think that's causing the problem. There is a tag that says unfinished code so I'm assuming something there is off.

[fert]

[code]
$text = $text." ";
$text = substr($text,0,$chars);
$text = substr($text,0,strrpos($text,' '));
$text = $text." <strong>...</strong> ";
[/code]
You use $text as a varible in the function twice

[Zorg]

[!--quoteo(post=381265:date=Jun 7 2006, 11:35 PM:name=phpuesr1)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(phpuesr1 @ Jun 7 2006, 11:35 PM) [snapback]381265[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--]
[code]
$text = $text." ";
$text = substr($text,0,$chars);
$text = substr($text,0,strrpos($text,' '));
$text = $text." <strong>...</strong> ";
[/code]
You use $text as a varible in the function twice
[/quote]

Would that not make it display the result though. I know zilch about php [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/huh.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":huh:\" border=\"0\" alt=\"huh.gif\" /] , which line should i change.

[fert]

[!--quoteo(post=381266:date=Jun 7 2006, 09:44 PM:name=Zorg)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Zorg @ Jun 7 2006, 09:44 PM) [snapback]381266[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--]
Would that not make it display the result though. I know zilch about php [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/huh.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":huh:\" border=\"0\" alt=\"huh.gif\" /] , which line should i change.
[/quote]
Well you should just change the name of $text to like $Text, That might fix the problem [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":smile:\" border=\"0\" alt=\"smile.gif\" /]

[Zorg]

[!--quoteo(post=381268:date=Jun 7 2006, 11:46 PM:name=phpuesr1)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(phpuesr1 @ Jun 7 2006, 11:46 PM) [snapback]381268[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--]
Well you should just change the name of $text to like $Text, That might fix the problem [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":smile:\" border=\"0\" alt=\"smile.gif\" /]
[/quote]

Hmm no that doesn't do anything.. I've actually found that script elsewhere on the internet and it is exactly the same as the one I have so I think that should be right. Thanks though