Script for autocomplete not working

PHP
1

Ok, the title is not exactly excellent, so let me explain the situation here. I use a javascript plugin to make suggestions to the user while they type in a form field. This javascript file uses a PHP file to know the values to suggest. This PHP file queries the database to return these values.

What I would like to do is to return different results based on the user who is connected, but when I try to do this, everything stops working. It only works if I specify one single query.

After the connection to the database, here is the code:


<?php
$query = $_GET['query'];
$users=array();

if ($_SESSION['privilege'] == 100) {
	$sql = "SELECT username FROM users WHERE username LIKE 'something'";
} else {
        $sql = "SELECT username FROM users WHERE username LIKE 'somethingelse'";
}
	$result = mysqli_query($conn,$sql);
	while ($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result))
	{ 
		$users['suggestions'][] = stripslashes($row['username']);
	}

$users['query'] = $query;
echo json_encode($users);
?>

It looks like the script is not able to check the value of $_SESSION[‘privilege’], but it should, because I am able to check it inside other pages. This script works if I delete the if then else.

Any ideas?:confused:

2

You need to put:

session_start();

At the top of your code there.

3

You are right, I forgot to start the session. However, it still doesn’t work…

4

So are you saying it stopped working after switching the query based on the session privileges?
Have you done the following:

  • Tested the queries in phpmyadmin or command line.
  • Tested to check if the ‘if’ statements have been triggered
  • Echoed the query to verify it is using what you think its using

E

5

$conn is undefined.
Query is returning successfully nothing;
Query is being rejected.

All 3 need to be tested.

6

Solved. The problem was a combination of the two lines in bold: somehow the line where I assigned the privilege to a variable session had disappeared from my code, therefore I never enter the if section of the if then else, and then I ran the second query on a wrong table and so it returned zero results.