Array Values Not Working In Function

[spock9458]

This is a specific question about passing array values in functions, and I'm either not doing it right or it can't be done.  My project involves a membership directory listing which has company information and contact people at each company, and there is more to do, but I want to understand the concept of using functions for my repetitive code, so I need to know why what I am trying does not work.  First I started with a working sample that can be seen here: http://www.nmlta.org/NewMemDir/testjoin.php

 

All I did was take the code that lists the items in my arrays and created two functions: listCompany(), and listContact(), and I call the functions where I think they need to go, but here is what the result is so far: http://www.nmlta.org/NewMemDir/testjoin3.php

 

I am attaching both codes for anyone to review, minus my connection info.  I am really interested in figuring this out, so I appreciate your help.  Thanks.

testjoin.php

testjoin3.php

[fastsol]

You need to send the $row array into the function to be able to access the array in the function.

Change the lines in your code to these.

function listCompany($row)
function listContact($row)

echo "<tr><td>";
    
    listCompany($row);
    }
	// This is the end of the Company info
	
    listContact($row);
    }
	echo "</td></tr>";

[mac_gyver]

php, correctly, has local variable scope in functions. this is so that the only affect a function will have on the calling code is at the point where it is called. this also helps with the design of a function, since you must define what inputs it needs, so that you can define a call time parameter for each input.

 

i recommend that you get your overall logic to work first. then you will be able to see what repetitive code there is in it that would benefit by using a function.

[spock9458]

Thanks, that makes sense... and the functions are now working.  I wanted to understand that part of it, so that I can work on the logic now without all of the output clutter... I'll see what I can do, thanks.

[spock9458]

So, based on suggestions in another post, I have adjusted my working code to try and hold my results in a $company_array, and test the listing using a foreach loop instead of a while loop, so I can understand this process.  Here are the "before" (working) and "after" (not working) sections of code:

 

Before:

// Start building the table for showing results using "while" loop
$lastCompany = '';
echo "<table border='1' cellpadding='10' cellspacing='0' bgcolor='#f0f0f0' style='margin-left:100px; margin-bottom:20px'>";
// Here is the "while" loop
while($row = mysql_fetch_array( $result )) {
    if ($lastCompany != $row['comp_name']) {
    // OK we have a new Company to output
    $lastCompany = $row['comp_name']; # Track the "last" company we processed
    echo "<tr><td>";
    
    listCompany($row);
    }
    // This is the end of the Company info
    
    listContact($row);
    }
    echo "</td></tr>";
    
echo "</table>";

 

And here is the "After":

$company_array = mysql_fetch_array($result);

// Start building the table for showing results using "while" loop
echo "<table border='1' cellpadding='10' cellspacing='0' bgcolor='#f0f0f0' style='margin-left:100px; margin-bottom:20px'>";
// Here is the "while" loop
$lastCompany = '';
foreach($company_array as $row) {
    if ($lastCompany != $row['comp_name']) {
    // OK we have a new Company to output
    $lastCompany = $row['comp_name'];
    
    echo "<tr><td><p><b>";
    
    listCompany($row);
    }
    
    listContact($row);
    
    echo "</td></tr>";}
    
echo "</table>";

 

I don't understand the results of this, which can be viewed here: http://www.nmlta.org/NewMemDir/testlist.php

 

Please let me know what I've done wrong... thanks.
 

[fastsol]

We need to see how you are building the $company_array

[spock9458]

OK, I gave this my best shot... here are the three lines of code that I thought would do that:

 

// Retrieve all the data from the "company" table
$query = "SELECT * FROM company LEFT JOIN contact ON company.company_id = contact.company_id WHERE comp_county = 'BERNALILLO' ORDER BY company.comp_name, contact.cont_rank";

$result = mysql_query($query)
or die(mysql_error());

$company_array = mysql_fetch_array($result);
 

Prior to changing the code, my loop was:  while($row = mysql_fetch_array( $result )) {

My goal is to store the query result in the $company_array placeholder for handling by the code that will come later... but I'm obviously not doing it quite right... please let me know what I need to do.  Thanks.

[fastsol]

You would need to use the while loop to gather all the results from the query, the way you have it it only gets the first row.

$company_array = array();
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc( $result )) {
  $company_array[] = $row;
}

I also prefer using mysql_fetch_assoc instead of mysql_fetch_array cause you don't get twice the array size and the array provided is keyed by the row name.

[spock9458]

That is beautiful... now my new code is working.  On to the next step in my project, I appreciate the help to understand how to "load" my array - it makes total sense now.