Array and Variable question

[LucasDavenport]

I am fairly new to PHP programming, but not OO programming. I inherited a web app (long story involved there) with a mySQL back-end supplying the data. The program is fairly well written and I have been tasked with making upgrades and mods to the app. The problem I am having is altering a function that pulls information from the database and puts it into an array to be displayed on a search results screen.

 

The function is:

 

//Function:: s_dept_chair

    //Purpose:: returns name of anyone who is a chair of a department of type $dept_id

function s_dept_chair($dept_id) {

if(is_numeric($dept_id)) {

$this->query = "SELECT s1.*, ins_name FROM ".

"institution, (SELECT person.* FROM person, dept_ins, dept_ins_chair ".

"WHERE person.pers_id = dept_ins_chair.chair_id ".

" AND dept_ins_chair.dept_ins_id = dept_ins.dept_ins_id ".

" AND dept_id = $dept_id ".

" ORDER BY person.pers_lastname, person.pers_firstname) s1".

" where s1.ins_id = institution.ins_id";

database::query();

}

}

 

The page code used to display the array elements is:

 

if(isset($chairs))

if(!empty($chairs)) {

foreach($chairs as $chair) {

  echo "\t<p>\n";

  //Removed Until Prefixes are fixed

  //$out = $prefix_array[$x['arr_prefix']];

  echo "<strong>Name:</strong>";

  echo "\t\t<a href=\"index.php?action=person_info&pers_id=$chair[pers_id]\">\n";

echo "\t\t\t$chair[pers_lastname], $chair[pers_firstname]";

echo "$chair[pers_middlename] <br />";

echo "\t\t</a>\n";

 

echo "<strong>Title:</strong>";

echo "\t\t$chair[pers_title]<br/>\n";

 

echo "<strong>Institution:</strong>";

echo "\t\t$chair[ins_name]<br /> \n";

 

echo "<strong>Department:</strong>";

echo "\t\t$chair[dept_ins_name] <br />";

 

echo "<strong>BS:</strong>";

echo "\t\t$chair[bslabel] <br />";

echo "\t\t<strong>Work Phone:</strong> $chair[pers_wphone]<br/>\n";

echo "\t\t<strong>Email Address:</strong>\n";

$emails = explode('|', $chair["pers_emails"]);

foreach ($emails as $x){

echo "\t\t$x<br/>\n";

}

echo "\t</p>\n";

}

 

I amended the SQL query to add the institution name. Likewise I added the $chair[ins_name] to the loop to display the intitution name with each record.

 

however, the problem i am having is that the institution doesn't display. It's as if the query isn't pulling up the ins_name field from the function I altered previously. When I view the page, the institution field is blank. I added a fake label called BS and it is doing the same thing as the real field, but I can't figure out why it doesn't have the information it should. What am I missing?

 

If i need to provide more info, I can . . .

 

any suggestions?

 

[emehrkay]

im trying to understand why the query is structured the way that it is, but try

 

institution.ins_name in place of ins_name