[RESOLVED] Not understanding Return - to use or not?

[conjurer]

In the code below I connect to the database and then throw an exception if it fails. If it succeeds I print a message and then return with $db which I thought was the database object. But it doesn't execute the rest of the script after that point. If I take out the return then it does the print commands that follow the code block.

Obviously I am not understanding the use of return. Can anyone help me understand this better? Do I not need to use a return so that I can access the database further in the code?

Thanks.

<?php 

// First need to connect to database
$pword = "xyz213";

echo "<p>Attempting to connect to omgma_members database with $pword password at line:" . __LINE__ ."</p>";


   @$db = new mysqli("localhost", "omgma_omgmauser", $pword, "omgma_members");
	  if (mysqli_connect_errno() > 0) 
	  {
	   $db_err = "db_connect cound not connect to database:<br/> " .mysqli_connect_error();
     throw (new Exception($db_err));
     } 

 else
 {
 echo "Connection worked! <br>";
   return $db;
 }


  echo "<p>This is where the login test starts! <br />";
  echo "Trying to login as $username using password: $passwd</p>";
//This is where the login logic will go...




print "</div>"; //closes the maincontent div 
include ('includes/footer.inc');
?>

[bretticus]

conjurer wrote:

Obviously I am not understanding the use of return. Can anyone help me understand this better? Do I not need to use a return so that I can access the database further in the code?

You probably only wanna use return if your code where embedded in a function. In your case, that function would handle all the connection intricacies and simply return a mysqli object. When it's used in global scope (as you appear to be using it) it is pretty much equivalent to die().

[conjurer]

Thanks