asked on

Why is my foreach loop not returning values from $_SESSION variable

Hi
I have set a $_SESSION variable and cannot see why my foreach loop is not working. All get if I echo the var $v all I get is white screen. If I echo my session var then I can see the data that is being passed is in the format wd10,wd11,wd12. I would be grateful if someone could check my loop and point out my mistake. Thanks

session var

$_SESSION['boxdest2']

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Loop

<?php

foreach ($_SESSION['boxdest2'] as $key=>$value)
	{	
  $temp = explode(",", $value);
  foreach($temp as $k => $v )
  {
    $query = "SELECT * FROM boxes WHERE customer = '$_SESSION[kt_idcode_usr]' AND status = 1 AND custref = '$v'";
    $result = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
    $row = mysql_fetch_array($result) or die(mysql_error());
    $rack = $row['rack'] . "-" . $row['column'] . "-" . $row['row'] .  "-" . "(" . $row['bay'] . ")";
		
//    $query = "UPDATE boxes SET status = '9' WHERE customer = '$customer' AND department = '$dept' AND custref = '$v'";
//    mysql_query($query) or die('Error, query failed');
//	
	$query = 'INSERT INTO `act` (`slot`, `service`, `activity`, `department`, `company`, `address`, `user`, `item`, `destroyedby`, `destroyedby_date`, `date`, `new`) VALUES (\''.$rack.'\', \''.$service.'\', \''.$activitys.'\', \''.$dept.'\', \''.$company.'\', \''.$address.'\', \''.$user.'\', \''.$v.'\', \''.$user.'\',NOW(),NOW(), \''.$new.'\');';
   mysql_query($query) or die('Error, query failed');
	}
	}
?>

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Dave Baldwin

The first thing is that session_start(); needs to be at the top of your script so your code can find the SESSION.

http://php.net/manual/en/function.session-start.php

Ray Paseur

white screen

This is usually a symptom of an error occurring in a script that has error reporting disabled. Suggest you add error_reporting(E_ALL) to the top of all your PHP scripts and fix the things that cause error, warning and notice messages. Here is how the session works. Use session_start() before you access any of the contents of $_SESSION.
https://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/11909/PHP-Sessions-Simpler-Than-You-May-Think.html

Also recommend you treat the MySQL issue as urgent. Please see the note here. It's not hard to fix, especially if you use object-oriented MySQLi. If you don't fix it, your scripts will begin to fail at run time (perhaps with the white screen of death) and the only thing you won't know is when the failures will being to occur. I wouldn't want that kind of uncertainty hanging over my head!
https://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/11177/PHP-MySQL-Deprecated-as-of-PHP-5-5-0.html

If you're ever in doubt about what information might be in a PHP variable, you can use var_dump() to visualize the information. Example: var_dump($_SESSION);

A couple of other things you might want to take a look at...

Don't use fetch_array() functions unless you know exactly why you need them. Instead choose fetch_object(). It is much more efficient. Details here: https://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/12293/AntiPHPatterns-and-AntiPHPractices.html. In the article, look for 27. Overlooking Meaningful Optimization

Avoid the use of die() when what you really want is trigger_error() instead.
https://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/29115/PHP-Error-Handling-Never-Say-die-Again.html

Consider this statement:

$row = mysql_fetch_array($result) or die(mysql_error());

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That's the wrong way to deal with an empty results set. If your script gets to that line of code, the query was successful! So there is no reasonable expectation that the script should die, nor that mysql_error() would have a meaningful value. If $row is empty, it's because the query did not find anything that matched the WHERE clause. This is a perfectly normal and expected behavior for MySQL databases, and certainly not a reason to terminate the script.

peter-cooper

ASKER

Thanks for comments. However, in my post I state the comment below. So yes, session_start() is at the top of the page.

If I echo my session var then I can see the data that is being passed is in the format wd10,wd11,wd12

Ray Paseur

OK, but we did not see session_start() in the code snippet, and omitting it is a common mistake. So please let us see the data. Please use var_dump($_SESSION) and post the output in the code snippet here. This should be enough to get the information we need to see. Please use your browser's view source feature and copy the information from that view, thanks.

<?php
error_reporting(E_ALL);
session_start();
var_dump($_SESSION);

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peter-cooper

ASKER

Here you go ray:

'boxdest2' => string 'WD10,WD11,WD12' (length=14)

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Ray Paseur

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peter-cooper

ASKER

Thanks very much Ray. Exactly what I wanted to see which enabled me to code this correctly. Many thanks

Ray Paseur

Glad to help, and best of luck with your project, ~Ray