Question

Need some MySQLi help x.x @ultrilliam

Answer 1

I'm having an error:
`Parse error: syntax error, unexpected token "else" in [directory to]\functions.inc.php on line 19`

When my code is as follows: (Lines 14-23)
```
14 function invalidUid($username) {
15 $result;
16 if (!preg_match("/^[a-zA-Z0-9]*$/", $username) {
17 $result = true
18 }
19 else {
20 $result = false;
21 }
22 return $result
23 }
```

Answer 2

This is PHP help, not so much MySQLi, your problem is in line 16, you don't have the closing parenthesis to the if statement, only to the function.

Answer 3

You're also missing the semicolon at the end of line 22 and 17

Answer 4

I see now, thanks

Answer 5

Also your spacing is also wonky, though that's less important:
```php
function invalidUid($username) {
$result;
if (!preg_match("/^[a-zA-Z0-9]*$/", $username)) {
$result = true;
} else {
$result = false;
}
return $result;
}
```
I'm also not entirely sure why you just have $result on line 15, it's not defining it without an `=` sign

Answer 6

It’s a placeholder to define it

Answer 7

It doesn't get defined like that, in fact I'm fairly sure that will throw a compiler warning about the variable not being defined but being called. Since you have an if/else here, there really isn't a need to define it, but if you wanted to, you would have to do `$result = false;` as a temporary assign. PHP doesn't really have a way to declare a variable before use, unlike JavaScript