Making All Variables Automatically Global?

[thetzfreak]

Hi, I have a script that queries a database many times on one page, and each time the query information is the same, except for one WHERE something LIKE something statement. I want to create this function:

function query($category) {$query = "SELECT some_columns FROM business WHERE category like '$category' ORDER BY category ASC";
    $result = mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error()."<br />".$query);
    $num_results = mysql_num_rows($result);} 

Variables such as $num_results are not going to be able to be used (I don't think) outside this function. How do I automatically make all variables outside a function work inside a function, and all variables inside a function work outside the function? It would take me forever to make the variables I need global one by one.

Thanks.

[clamcrusher]

if you want everything done within the global scope, maybe thats what you should do. just use an include file and include it into the global scope.