slimdown functions or create class?

[trevor2]

I have 3 functions in this file and they have repetitive lines of code and I'm not sure how to go about slimming things down. The file is basically 3x as large as it needs to be in my opinion. Can I create a class with all 3 menu creating functions, while still including the database connecting parts?

Or should I just trim these areas out?
//connect to database -> in all three functions
//select database -> in all three functions
//close connection -> in all three functions

Here is one of the functions from the functions.inc file.

function category_menu()
{
    //connect to database 
    $db_connect = mysql_connect("localhost", "root", "") or die ("Could not connect");

    //select database
    $db = mysql_select_db('em', $db_connect);
        if (!$db) {
            die('Could not select em database: ' . mysql_error());
        } else { echo 'Database Selected.<br />';
        }
            
    // execute the query
    $rResult = mysql_query("SELECT `category_id`, `category_field` FROM `em_category`");    
    if (!is_resource($rResult))
        {
            die('Could not query the em_category table: ' . mysql_error());
        } else {echo 'Table query sent.<br />';
        }

    // echo tags to create menu
    echo "<select name = 'category_field' size='5'>";
        while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($rResult)) 
        {
        echo "<option name = '" . $row['category_field'] . "'>". $row['category_field'] . "</option>";
        }
        echo "</select>";

    //close connection. required in all functions?
    mysql_close($db_connect);
} 

[logic_earth]

Well...not sure what the three functions are or there relation to one another is. But yeah I would create a class then pass that database connection/object into the object. Or make it flexible and pass the required data in the specified format.

[trevor2]

The functions basically do the same thing, creating menu's. The only real difference is the sql query for getting different categories.

[forkaya]

Combine into one function and pass query as an argument.

[binarysys]

Anytime I have to repeat the same code more than twice I know I'm doing something wrong that I will regret later. Make it a class that connects to the db in the constructor with one function (method) to print out your options. You will end up adding more and more methods.

A little trick that I learned the hard way is only use php to print out the <option> tags. Hard code in the <select name=''>. There are exceptions to that of course.