Re: Sometimes I wonder why I even started programming...

Jason Pruim schreef:

So I was supposed to go home a half hour ago but that didn't happen... I hate deadlines! :P

in my home language Pruim means prune ... you sound like you've had to suck on one to many ;-)

Can someone tell me why this code works for setting the table name:

dunno. lets rewrite the thing shall we? let cutdown on variable usage, shorten some names and use a verb rather than a noun to name the function ... and let's learn about 'by reference' parameters (notice the '&' before '$table') function authenticate($user, $pass, &$table) { // do you want to stop/catch 're-authentication'? if ($_SESSION['loggedin']) return; // escape your data!

        $pass = mysql_real_escape_string(md5("someThingOnlyDanBrownCouldGuess".$pass));

$name = mysql_real_escape_string($user); // only select what you need (no semi-colons [needed] to delimit the query) // name + password should be unique! so no real need for the LIMIT clause

        $res  = mysql_query("SELECT tableName FROM current WHERE loginName='{$name}' AND loginPassword='{$pass}' LIMIT 0,1");

// I think a die() is overkill // rather an abrupt end to the script, such errors can be with more grace if (!$res) die("Wrong data supplied or database error" .mysql_error()); // nobody found - bad credentials, authentication failed if (!mysql_numrows($res)) return false; // grab data $row = mysql_fetch_assoc($res); // set session data $_SESSION['user'] = $user;

        $_SESSION['loggedin'] 	= true; // use a BOOLEAN ... because "NO" equates to TRUE!

// no idea what this 'table name' is about but ... // let's set the 'by reference' variable to the value we found $table = $row['tableName']; // user authenticated!

        return true;

} which you would use like so: $spoon = null; if (authenticate("Jochem", "MySecret", $spoon)) echo "authenticated! table is set to $spoon"; else echo "authentication failed, there is no \$spoon";

-- Jason Pruim Raoset Inc. Technology Manager MQC Specialist 3251 132nd ave Holland, MI, 49424-9337 www.raoset.com japruim@raoset.com