Simple String Madness

[Rongisnom]

I'm hoping that the solution is obvious and that one of you knowledgable devleopers will just be shaking your head at my silliness but I've been pounding my head over this for way too long (read hours).

Being very new please forgive me if the semantics of my explanation is poor.

My problem is in passing a variable to a SELECT statement. The variable in the code is $x_smn_author. The value should be "Curtis Young".
I can get the rem'd out variable to be echoed correctly, however even if I type in the expected string (non-rem'd variable) I cannot get it to be accepted in the SELECT statement.

The non-rem'd SELECT statement does work.

What am I not understanding about the string value of a variable? I even tried using strval($x_smn_author) with no change.

Code snippet:

//$x_smn_author = @$row["smn_author"];
		$x_smn_author = "Curtis Young";
		$x_smn_title = @$row["smn_title"];
		$x_smn_body = @$row["smn_body"];
		break;
}
		//$strsql2 = 'SELECT * FROM use_statement WHERE author ='.strval($x_smn_author); 
//$strsql2 = 'SELECT * FROM use_statement WHERE author ='. $x_smn_author; 
		$strsql2 = 'SELECT * FROM use_statement WHERE author = "Curtis Young" '; 
		$rs2 = mysql_query($strsql2,$conn) or die(mysql_error());

[bubblenut]

Right, first off, what on earth does rem'd mean? :queasy:
Second, if I understand what you mean correctly then your second commented out select should work.

$strsql2 = 'SELECT * FROM use_statement WHERE author ='. $x_smn_author;

However, without knowing what's at the opening end of that closing brace I can't tell if the script's ever going to reach the point where $x_smn_author is set. Can you provide some more code (specifically the whole of that code block) please?
Also try echoing out the whole query string so that you can see exactly what's being passed to the database.

$strsql2 = 'SELECT * FROM use_statement WHERE author ='. $x_smn_author;
echo($strsql2 );
mysql_query($strsql2, $conn) or die(mysql_error());

[Rongisnom]

Sorry I was trying not to inundate you guys with the code.
REM is the same as commenting out a line of code. Sorry I'm a Domino developer and need to get my PHP semantics straight.
I added additional comments in the code.

<?php session_start(); ?>
<?php
header("Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT"); // date in the past
header("Last-Modified: " . gmdate("D, d M Y H:i:s") . " GMT"); // always modified
header("Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate"); // HTTP/1.1 
header("Cache-Control: post-check=0, pre-check=0", false); 
header("Pragma: no-cache"); // HTTP/1.0 
?>
<?php include ("db.php") ?>
<?php include ("phpmkrfn.php") ?>
<?php
ob_start();
$key = @$HTTP_GET_VARS["key"];
if (empty($key)) {
	 $key = @$HTTP_POST_VARS["key"];
}
if (empty($key)) {
	header("Location: sermonslist.php");
}

// get action
$a = @$HTTP_POST_VARS["a"];
if (empty($a)) {
	$a = "I";	//display with input box
}

// open connection to the database
$conn = mysql_connect(HOST, USER, PASS);
mysql_select_db(DB);
switch ($a)
{
	case "I": // get a record to display
		$tkey = "" . $key . "";
		$strsql = "SELECT * FROM sermons WHERE smn_id = " . $tkey;
		$rs = mysql_query($strsql,$conn) or die(mysql_error());
		if (mysql_num_rows($rs) == 0 ) {
			header("Location:sermonslist.php");
		}	

	// get the field contents
	$row = mysql_fetch_array($rs);
	$x_smn_id = @$row["smn_id"];
	$x_smn_date = @$row["smn_date"];
	$x_smn_abv_scpture = @$row["smn_abv_scpture"];
	$x_smn_scpture = @$row["smn_scpture"];
	//$x_smn_author = @$row["smn_author"]; - returns the correct value but doesn't work in SELECT statement.
	$x_smn_author = "Curtis Young"; // echoes correctly but doesn't work in SELECT statement.
	$x_smn_title = @$row["smn_title"];
	$x_smn_body = @$row["smn_body"];
	break;
}
		//$strsql2 = 'SELECT * FROM use_statement WHERE author ='.strval($x_smn_author); - doesn't work
		$strsql2 = 'SELECT * FROM use_statement WHERE author = "Curtis Young" '; //WORKS
		$rs2 = mysql_query($strsql2,$conn) or die(mysql_error());
		if (mysql_num_rows($rs2) == 0 ) {
			header("Location:sermonslist.php");			
		}

	$row2 = mysql_fetch_array($rs2);
	$x_statement = @$row2["statement"];
	$x_email = @$row2["email"];

	mysql_free_result($rs);
	mysql_free_result($rs2);
?>
<html>
<head>
<title>Atonement Sermon: <?php echo $x_smn_title; ?></title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Typ!" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
</head>

<body>
<div align="center"><h1><?php echo $x_smn_title; ?></h1>
<b>Rev. <?php echo $x_smn_author; ?></b><br>
<?php echo $x_smn_scpture; ?></div>
<p><em>(<?php echo $x_statement; ?> <?php echo $x_email; ?>)</em></p>
<?php echo $x_smn_body; ?>
</body>
</html>

[bubblenut]

Change

$strsql2 = 'SELECT * FROM use_statement WHERE author ='.strval($x_smn_author);

to

$strsql2 = "SELECT * FROM use_statement WHERE author ='$x_smn_author'";

and also add an

echo($x_smn_author);

before the call to mysql_query().

HTH
Bubble

[Rongisnom]

Bubblenut - You the man!!
I tried every itteration possible, except that one. DOH!

Thank you very much for such prompt responses. Greatly appreciated.