Page displays blank when I add joke to library...help!

PHP
1

I going through kevin yank’s “BYO database driven website using PHP & MySql” in chpt 4; inserting Data into the database pg 132. The idea is to be able to add a joke into the database and upon form submission, a list of all the jokes plus one you’ve just submitted should appear. The problem I have is that the page is simply “blank” when i click ‘submit’ button. I’m positive I’ve written the code correctly. I’m I missing something? Code below (chapter4/addjoke/index.php - p.g 139-40):

<?php
if (get_magic_quotes_gpc()) {
function stripslashes_deep($value) {
$value = is_array($value) ?
array_map(‘stripslashes_deep’, $value) :
stripslashes($value);

	return $value;
}
$_POST = array_map('stripslashes_deep', $_POST);
$_GET = array_map('stripslashes_deep', $_GET);
$_COOKIE = array_map('stripslashes_deep', $_COOKIE);
$_REQUEST = array_map('stripslashes_deep', $_REQUEST);

}

if (isset($_GET['addjoke'])) {
	include 'form.html.php';
	exit();
}

// establishing connection with database
$link = mysqli_connect(‘localhost’, ‘root’);
if (!$link) {
$error = ‘Unable to connect to the server.’;
include ‘error.html.php’;
exit();
}
if (!mysqli_set_charset($link, ‘utf8’)) {
$output = ‘Unable to set database connection encoding.’;
include ‘output.html.php’;
exit();
}

//detect magic if magic quotes are enabled
if (!mysqli_select_db($link, ‘ijdb’)) {
$error = ‘Unable to locate the Joke database.’;
include ‘error.html.php’;
exit();
}

//converting contents of $_POST into query safe content
if (isset($_POST[‘joketext’])) {
$joketext = mysqli_real_escape_string($link, $_POST[‘joketext’]);
$sql = ‘INSERT INTO joke SET
joketext = "’ . $joketext . ‘",
jokedate = CURDATE()’;
if (!mysqli_query($link, $sql)) {
$error = 'Error adding submitted joke: ’ . mysqli_error($link);
include ‘error.html.php’;
exit();
}
header('Location: ');
exit();
}

$result = mysqli_query($link, ‘SELECT joketext FROM joke’);
if (!$result) {
$error = 'Error fetching jokes: ’ . mysqli_error($link);
include ‘error.html.php’;
exit();
}

while ($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result)) {
$jokes = $row[‘joketext’];
}
include ‘jokes.html.php’;
?>

2

What’s this line for?

header('Location: ');

3

Funny when I checked what the line was with the book it said that’s the line to redirect the submitted form back to the controller (index.php). The problem with the line was the fact that I forgot to include a period like this:

header(‘Location: .’);

the page works absolutely fine. Many thanks!! wow!