[SOLVED] Same script works on one page and not another

[zhangy]

Hi, I may have been staring at this too long but I have this script below that works fine on my homepage but does not work on another page that is in the same directory as the homepage. 

 

I get this error: Unknown column 'col_2' in 'field list'

<?php

require_once('load_data.php');

$result = mysql_query("SELECT DISTINCT(col_2) FROM $table ORDER BY submission_id DESC LIMIT 6")or die(mysql_error());
$Check = "";
$i = 0;

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

	if(($i%2) == 0 ) {
	   $class = 'even';
	   }else{
	   $class = 'odd';
	   }

	if(!in_array($row['col_2'], $Check)) {
            $Check[] = $row['col_2'];
            $subject = $row['col_2'];
		echo "<li class=\"{$class}\">";
		echo '<a href="employer.php?id='.urlencode($subject).'" class="job_link" title="recent posts by '.$row['col_2'].'">'.$row['col_2'].'</a>';
		echo "</li>";

		$i++;
	}
}
mysql_free_result($result);
?>

[akitchin]

the most likely cause of the error is that $table is not being defined in the page that it isn't working on. is $table being set before the script, or is it being set in load_data.php?

[zhangy]

yeah, $table is set in the load_data.php file. but I also tried defining it in the page instead of using require_once and received the same error. I dont know, Ill have to play around with it some more and hopefully the answer will present itself.

[akitchin]

two quick tips: 1. echo the query to see what it's trying to run, in case it isn't what you expect, and 2. make sure you didn't commit a typo when you defined the table (ie. check that it is named col_2).

[phporcaffeine]

I generally do not advocate echoing variables directly into a query statement (for many reasons), my guess is that $table does not contain what you think it contains, when you're using the script on the page that it does not work on.