mysql_real_escape_string() question

Hi gang: In one of my snip-its, namely: http://xn--ovg.com/pdf I was generating a pdf document after the user filled in a form. I had been cleaning the user input by using -- $name = mysql_real_escape_string($name); -- even though I wasn't using MySQL (the code was a cut-paste from some other code I had). However, everything worked! But, a couple of days ago it suddenly stopped working. Now, I get the following error: Warning: mysql_real_escape_string(): Access denied for user 'nobody'@'localhost' (using password: NO) in ... When I comment-out the offending statement, it runs. I replaced the statement, but wonder what happened -- when did using mysql_real_escape_string() require a password? What's up with that? Any ideas as to what happened? tedd -- ------- http://sperling.com http://ancientstones.com http://earthstones.com