PHP 4.3.11 & problems with conditional statements/ html href tags

[janaki]

Hey sorry for any unintentioned broken rules - I'm a PHP newbie here.
Does anyone know of any problems with PHP 4.3.11 & using
conditional statements? I"m having a hard time getting
html <ahref >links in my php page to show data from the MYSQL database.
I get a blank page where data from the MYSQL database should be.

I tested out each individual query on MYSQL Server, and through the first function(which works), When I tested out the first conditional statement using the three variables 's', 'st' and 'w'; they all bring up data from MYSQL database,
but when you try to click on any of the three links (subject, workshop, state) nothing happens

here is a piece of my code below, I commented the places that work and the places that don't work

thnx in advance!

========================================================================================

<a href=<?= $PHP_SELF; ?>?v=s">view by subject </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href=<?= $PHP_SELF; ?>?v=w>view by workshop</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href=<?= $PHP_SELF; ?>?v=st>view by state</a><br><br>

<?
$v = ($v)?$v:'w';

include_once('../webeditor/config.php3'); // conf variables
include_once('../webeditor/functions.inc.php');// functions
dbconnect();

$workshops = get_cw_listinfo('cw_workshop'); #ten12_dump($workshops);
$subjects = get_cw_listinfo('cw_subject'); #ten12_dump($subjects);
$states = get_stateinfo(); #ten12_dump($states);

/* THIS PART WORKS FINE....
if ($v=='w' && !$s && !$w && !$st){

	foreach($subjects as $sid => $subject){
?>
	&bull;&nbsp;<a href=<? $PHP_SELF ?> ?s=<?= $sid ?> >
	<?= $subject['name'] ?>
	</a><br><br>
<?
} //end foreach

}*/

/THIS IS THE PART THAT DOES NOT WORK/
if($v=='s' && !$s && !$w && !$st){
foreach($subjects as $sid => $subject){
?>
&bull;&nbsp;<a href=<? $HTTP_SERVER_VARS['PHP_SELF']; ?> ?s=<?= $sid ?> >
<?= $subject['name'] ?>
</a><br><br>
<?

[chrome29]

So when you view source, do you see the HTML and not the PHP vars? Or do you see nothing?

[janaki]

I see html and php:

(This is if I use $HTTP_SERVER_VARS['PHP_SELF'] )
<a href='mainframe.php'?v=s>workshop
<a href='mainframe.php'?v=s>subject
<a href='mainframe.php'?v=s>state

or I get this is I use just 'PHP_SELF'
<a href=?v=w>workshop
<a href=?v=s>subject
<a href=?v=st>state

[NogDog]

I see a number of potential problem areas in your code, not specifically due to functional differences in PHP versions, but due to possible configuration differences.

1. In case PHP short_open_tags is not enabled, you should use <?php instead of <? and <?php echo instead of <?= .

2. Much of your code appears to depend on register_globals being turned on, which is not a good thing since it is turned off by default in all relatively current releases of PHP (and for a good reason). You should use $SERVER['PHP_SELF'] rather than just $PHP_SELF or the now-deprecated $HTTP_SERVER_VARS array. Your values from the URL query string should be referenced via the $GET array, e.g. $_GET['v'] instead of $v.

[janaki]

thanks NogDog and Chrome20 - the problem was I was using a WHOLE bunch of deprecated php tags. so I went back and changed them. The reall bug was not using $_GET[]. so I modified the code and it worked like a charm : )

you can check out the site here:
http://www.cultureisaweapon.org/stories/mainframe.php
thank you, thank you thank you!