[SOLVED] why is this causing a "fatal error"

[jbrill]

im trying to do a simple multiplication equation with the following:

//this is the equation for total hours
$sumsql = "SELECT SUM(hours) AS totalhours FROM workhours WHERE jobid=$jobid AND stepid=$stepid;";
$sums = mysql_query($sumsql);
$sum = mysql_fetch_array($sums);

$totalhours = $sum['totalhours']; 

// this is to calculate the cost 
$subcat = $result["subcat"];


$getcost = "SELECT * FROM subcategory WHERE subcat='$subcat'";
$costs = mysql_query($getcost);
$cost = mysql_fetch_array($costs);

$a = $totalhours;
$b = $cost;
$total = ($a*$b);
echo $total;

 

and it is giving me this error:

 

Fatal error: Unsupported operand types in....

 

[chigley]

Have you tried echo()ing $a and $b to check they're OK?

[jorgep]

Are you still having the problem? can you post the whole error message?

[jbrill]

sorry, .. solved it late at night forgto to check off topic solved