[RESOLVED] PHP not being parsed by Apache

cmw

I am teaching myself php & mysql and hope I am overlooking something simple.

I am running:
ubuntu 10.10
php version 5.3.3-1ubuntu9.3
apache version Apache/2.2.16 (Ubuntu)
mysql verion 5.1.49-1ubuntu8.1

MySQL appears to be working fine and I can interact with it from a command prompt and with phpmyadmin.

A simple .php file with

<?
phpinfo();
?>

displays the php details page without problem.

After that things fall apart. I can not get even the most simple of .php data to display. for example:

<html>
<head>
        <title>PHP Test</title>
</head>
<body>
        <p>
        <b>An Example of PHP in Action</b><br />
                <?php echo "The Current Date and Time is: <br>";
                        echo date("g:i A l, F j Y.");?>
        </p>

    <h2>PHP Information</h2>
    <p>
            <?php phpinfo(); ?>
    </p>
</body>
</html>

The snippet above, when viewed in a browser, shows all of the html but displays the date and time php as text and doesn't display the phpinfo section at all.
The snippet below only returns a blank page. I have tried many different php files, some that attempt to connect to a database and some that don't and all give me the same problem.

<?php
$dbhost='localhost';
$dbuser='user1';
$dbpass='pass123';
$dbname='available';

$conn=mysql_connect($dbhost,$dbuser,$dbpass) or die ('You screwed something up.');
mysql_select_db($dbname);

$query  = "SELECT commonName FROM available_animals";
$result = mysql_query($query);

while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
{
    echo "Name :{$row['commonName']} <br>" .
} 

mysql_close($conn);
?>

I have purged and reinstalled php5 but that didn't help.

Am I missing something simple here? If someone can point me in the right direction I'll be grateful.

Thanks in advance.

NogDog

Let's check the simple things first:

Did you name the files with a ".php" suffix?
Are the files in the web document root directory or one of its sub-directories?*
Are you accessing the file via a "http://localhost/" URL, rather than a "file://" URL or by double-clicking the file?

Depending on your Apache installation, it might be something like "www" or "htdocs" or "public_html".

cmw

NogDog;10977776 wrote:
Let's check the simple things first:

Did you name the files with a ".php" suffix?
Are the files in the web document root directory or one of its sub-directories?*
Are you accessing the file via a "http://localhost/" URL, rather than a "file://" URL or by double-clicking the file?

Depending on your Apache installation, it might be something like "www" or "htdocs" or "public_html".

Thanks for the reply.

The file extension are .php (except for the second example, which is an html file with embedded php).
I am accessing the web server via [url]http://,[/url] not file://. I have tried the FQDN as well as the IP address.
All of the files are in /var/www, the default directory.

FWIW, if I intentionally set the mysql password in the $dbpass= line (in the 3rd snippet in my original post) I don't get an error message. If the login was being passed to mysql I would expect to see the die message.

NogDog

...except for the second example, which is an html file with embedded php...

That file still needs a .php suffix. Without it, Apache will not know to process the file as PHP (unless you modify the Apache configuration to also send .html files to the PHP process).

cmw

I still don't know why my original samples don't work but I went ahead and completely removed and reinstalled apache and php5.

I created a new file called test.php and entered the following sample code I found:

<?php
#
mysql_connect("localhost", "user1", "pass123") or die(mysql_error());
#
echo "Connection to the server was successful!!<br/>";
#
mysql_select_db("available") or die(mysql_error());
#
echo "Database was selected!<br/>";
#
mysql_close();
?>

When accessing this file I receive both of the echo messages, suggesting that the php was parsed and that the connection to the database was successful.

Next I upped the stakes and added an actual query:

<?php
#
mysql_connect("localhost", "user1", "pass123") or die(mysql_error());
#
echo "Connection to the server was successful!!<br/>";
#

#
mysql_select_db("available") or die(mysql_error());
#
echo "Database was selected!<br/>";
#
$result=mysql_query("SELECT commonName FROM available_animals");

echo $result;

mysql_close();
?>

Now my result is

Connection to the server was successful!!

Database was selected!
Resource id #3

I don't fully understand what the Resource id #3 message is but it's progress from the white screen I was getting. Some of the reading I have done suggests I need to use a mysql_fetch_( ) function to display the data.

While I am making progress with with this particular file I am still have no progress with the original examples I posted. If anyone has additional guidance I'll be grateful. I have a feeling I'm about to learn something...

cmw

NogDog;10977788 wrote:
That file still needs a .php suffix. Without it, Apache will not know to process the file as PHP (unless you modify the Apache configuration to also send .html files to the PHP process).

Cool. Didn't realize that. Was thinking it was being treated more like javascript...

Changing the filename of that file to .php fixed the problem with that particular example. Thanks.

NogDog

[man]mysql_query/man returns a resource ID. That result is then used in functions such as [man]mysql_fetch_assoc/man to retrieve result rows from that resource.

cmw

NogDog;10977794 wrote:
[man]mysql_query/man returns a resource ID. That result is then used in functions such as [man]mysql_fetch_assoc/man to retrieve result rows from that resource.

Thanks for the link. I subtly tweaked the sample code on the page you sent me to and found success with this:

<?php

$conn = mysql_connect("localhost", "user1", "pass123");

if (!$conn) {
    echo "Unable to connect to DB: " . mysql_error();
    exit;
}

if (!mysql_select_db("available")) {
    echo "Unable to select available: " . mysql_error();
    exit;
}

$sql = "SELECT `commonName` FROM `available_animals`";

$result = mysql_query($sql);

if (!$result) {
    echo "Could not successfully run query ($sql) from DB: " . mysql_error();
    exit;
}

if (mysql_num_rows($result) == 0) {
    echo "No rows found, nothing to print so am exiting";
    exit;
}

while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    echo $row["commonName"];
}

mysql_free_result($result);

?>

The resulting output was data from the database so my biggest question (Are MySQL, PHP and Apache working correctly on my system?) has been answered.

I'm still trying to figure out why snippet #3 in my original post doesn't work but at least I now know that it's most likely in the PHP, not in the server configuration.

Thanks for the help.

bradgrafelman

cmw;10977802 wrote:
I'm still trying to figure out why snippet #3 in my original post doesn't work

It doesn't run because it contains a parse error:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '}' in test.php on line 16

You are probably getting nothing but a white screen because you have display_errors turned off and/or error_reporting isn't set to E_ALL.

cmw

Thank you for that.

Using your suggestion I changed the log_errors = Off to On in the /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini file and that allowed me to see the errors.

I then changed

while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
{
    echo "Name :{$row['commonName']} <br>" .
}

while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
{
    echo "Name :{$row['commonName']} <br>";
}

and everything is working now.

Thanks to both of your for your help. Appreciated.