easy function question

cooldmz

why won't this work?

at the top of the page:

<?php
$message = "click a link";
function printlink($text) {
	$message = $text;
}
?>

and in the body:

<a href="test.php" onclick="<? printlink('hello hello'); ?>">hello hello</a>
<a href="test.php" onclick="<? printlink('goodbye goodbye'); ?>">goodbye goodbye</a>
<? print $message; ?>

i'm getting a syntax error. i must be missing something easy/stupid. thanks!

YappyDog

What error are you getting?

cooldmz

well it's not doing anything (nothing is printing in the spot where it's supposed to print $message). Both IE and Firefox don't like the onclick part, Firefox says syntax error with the php code called by the onclick.

I don't even know if this makes sense; i just kind of dreamed it up. I know I can do something easier if i write to a form element with javascript, maybe I should just do that.

YappyDog

Now that I look at it, it makes more sense as to why you are having problems.....

The php code is going to be executed before your html page is rendered. So you end up with

<a href="test.php" onclick="">hello hello</a>

The onClick is empty because your function doesn't do anything but assign one variable to another variable.

cooldmz

so to write on the fly it really has to be JavaScript?

YappyDog

Yup, php is server-side code, javascript is the client-side piece.