Error on display

[harkly]

Can someone see if they can help figure out where my issue is with this code???

Background:
This is my display page, it pulls info from a search form and also inserts that info into a table. I then have it pulling search criteria from a table and displaying results, when a user clicks on a certain link. So I have my display page set up so that it pulls from a search form or from a table based on where the user is coming from.

These are the 2 options
1. search (gets search criteria from search form)
2. search2 (pulls search criteria from table directly)

I have both working when the user is looking for genderPref == 3 however when the user looks for genderPref 1 or 2 then I get the following error when I am pulling the info from the table directly

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '' at line 12

I have attached my code but here is a snippet as well - this is where I am getting my error on both else's

// GETTING ERRORS IN THESE 2 else's

// gender = 1 or 2 and zip is empty
else{
        if(empty($zip_code)) {
            $where = "WHERE user.bd_year <= $year1 AND user.bd_year >= $year2 AND user.gender = $genderPref AND user.genderPref = $gender ";
            if (!empty($smoke))
            {
                $where .= " AND about_me.smoking = $smoke";
            }
            if (!empty($religion))
            {
                $where .= " AND bkgd.relg = $religion";
            }
            if (!empty($heightMin))
            {
                $where .= " AND appearance.height >= $heightMin";
            }
            if (!empty($heightMax))
            {
                $where .= " AND appearance.height <= $heightMax";
            }
            if (!empty($hairColor))
            {
                $where .= " AND appearance.hair_color = $hairColor";
            }
            if (!empty($eyeColor))
            {
                $where .= " AND appearance.eye_color = $eyeColor";
            }
            $result = mysql_query("SELECT user.userID, user.gender, user.genderPref, user.city, user.state, photos.photo_1,
                  CURDATE(), (YEAR(CURDATE())-YEAR(birth_date)) - (RIGHT(CURDATE(),5)<RIGHT(birth_date,5)) AS age
                  FROM user
                  LEFT JOIN photos
                  ON user.userID = photos.userID
                  LEFT JOIN about_me
                  ON user.userID = about_me.userID
                  LEFT JOIN bkgd
                  ON user.userID = bkgd.userID
                  LEFT JOIN appearance
                  ON user.userID = appearance.userID
                  $where")or die(mysql_error());
        } // end of empty($zip_code)

// gender = 1 or 2 and zip is NOT empty
else{
            $z = new zipcode_class;
            $zips = $z->get_zips_in_range($zip_code, $miles, _ZIPS_SORT_BY_DISTANCE_ASC, true);

        if ($zips == false) {
            echo ""; }
        else {
            $zips_in_range = implode(',', array_keys($zips) );
            $where = "WHERE zip IN (". $zips_in_range .") AND user.bd_year <= $year1 AND user.bd_year >= $year2 AND user.gender = $genderPref AND user.genderPref = $gender ";
            if (!empty($smoke))
            {
                $where .= " AND about_me.smoking = $smoke";
            }
            if (!empty($religion))
            {
                $where .= " AND bkgd.relg = $religion";
            }
            if (!empty($heightMin))
            {
                $where .= " AND appearance.height >= $heightMin";
            }
            if (!empty($heightMax))
            {
                $where .= " AND appearance.height <= $heightMax";
            }
            if (!empty($hairColor))
            {
                $where .= " AND appearance.hair_color = $hairColor";
            }
            if (!empty($eyeColor))
            {
                $where .= " AND appearance.eye_color = $eyeColor";
            }
            $result = mysql_query("SELECT user.userID, user.gender, user.genderPref, user.city, user.state, photos.photo_1,
                  CURDATE(), (YEAR(CURDATE())-YEAR(birth_date)) - (RIGHT(CURDATE(),5)<RIGHT(birth_date,5)) AS age
                  FROM user
                  LEFT JOIN photos
                  ON user.userID = photos.userID
                  LEFT JOIN about_me
                  ON user.userID = about_me.userID
                  LEFT JOIN bkgd
                  ON user.userID = bkgd.userID
                  LEFT JOIN appearance
                  ON user.userID = appearance.userID
                  $where")or die(mysql_error());
        } // end of valid search
    } // end of search

[NogDog]

I would recommend that to help debug, you assign the entire query to a variable, then echo it as part of your die() to help debug:

$sql = "SELECT blah blah
blah blah
blah blah
$where";
$result = mysql_query($sql) or die(mysql_error()."\n<pre>$sql</pre>");

Then you can see if a value is empty or if you forgot to put quotes around it or whatever might be the problem.