PHP - If Else Delima Returns Nothing In The Else

Hi, I am trying to expand my very limited PHP by building a CMS. It's all new to me so please be courteous with your replies ?

I little history of my problem.

I am running xampp on a windows 10 running php 5.6.38

I have taken two video courses and on each I got stumped halfway through with a very similar problem.
The first was using mysql which I was converting to mysqli until I run into a problem.
I then started a new course which used mysqli but it was from 2014 so not sure which version of PHP or if it would even matter.

I am copying everything word for word and even downloaded the course file on the first one and still got the same problem so I'm wondering if there is something wrong with my setup - config?.

The problem.
I am trying to pull data from the database using a while loop. Each time it returns NULL.

This is the code:
 

<?php 

error_reporting(E_ALL);
ini_set('display_errors',1);

include("includes/database.php");
include("includes/header.php");

if ($connection) {        
    echo "Great, we're connected to the database<br><br>";
    }else {
        echo "Bummer, it didn't connect to the database!";
        }

     $query = "SELECT * FROM categories";
   $result_set = mysqli_query($connection, $query) ;

   if (!$result_set) {
           die("Query Failed".msqli_error($connection));
               }

   while ($row = mysqli_fetch_array($result_set)) {
               echo $row['cat_title'];
               }

    var_dump($result_set);                      
        
 ?>

This is the response:

Great, we're connected to the database

object(mysqli_result)#3 (5) { ["current_field"]=> int(0) ["field_count"]=> int(2) ["lengths"]=> NULL ["num_rows"]=> int(0) ["type"]=> int(0) }

Question:
the database table (categories) is populated with two rows (id & cat_title) and there is data in there.
So why does it not retrieve the data?

Thanks for your help.

Me again.. I'm fetching data from MySQL but each person in people.php is displayed two times instead one.. The issue must be inside models_category_tbl table, because each person have more then one result. Any advice is appreciated. What should I do?

I would like to display people something like that:

1 John Doe 1 IT developer, 3 mechanic

models/model = person

category = occupation/skills

MySQL:

model_index table
+---------+------------+-------------+-------------------+---------------+----------------+
|model_id | model_name | model_title | model_description | model_country | model_slug	  |
+---------+------------+-------------+-------------------+---------------+----------------+
| 1 	  | John Doe   | Johns title | Johns desc        | Hungary       | john-doe 	  |	
+---------+------------+-------------+-------------------+---------------+----------------+

models_category_tbl table
+-------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| category_id | model_category_name | model_category_slug |
+-------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| 1           | it developer        | it-developer        |
| 2           | photographer	    | photographer        |
| 3           | mechanic            | mechanic            |
+-------------+---------------------+---------------------+

models_category_ids table
+----+----------+-------------+
| id | model_id | category_id |
| 1  | 1        | 1           | 
| 1  | 1        | 3           |
+----+----------+-------------+

PHP function to fecth data:

        public function getAllModels1 () {

        $sql = "SELECT * FROM models_index  JOIN models_category_ids ON models_index.model_id=models_category_ids.model_id JOIN models_category_tbl ON  models_category_tbl.category_id=models_category_ids.category_id" ;
            $stmt = $this->conn->prepare($sql);
            $stmt->execute();
            $result = $stmt->fetchAll((PDO::FETCH_OBJ));
            
            return $result;            
    }

people.php

<?php 
declare(strict_types=1);
ob_start();
include "includes/connect.php";
include "includes/functions.php";
 

   	$model = new ModelsData();
	$models = $model->getAllModels1();


	foreach ($models as $model) { ?> 


	<a href="model.php?id=<?= $model->model_id ?>"><img src="<?= $model->model_img_path ?><?=$model->model_img_name ?>"></a>	 
 
	<?php echo $model->model_id . " " .  $model->model_name . " " . $model->category_id .  " " . $model->model_category_name  ; ?>
	

	<h3><?= $model->model_name ?></h3>

 
<?php }  ?>

Output:

 1 John Doe 1 IT developer 
 1 John Doe 3 mechanic

can someone explain to me why PHP returns so many different variants when throwing out visitor info using this piece of code?

$ip = gethostbyaddr($_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);

here are some examples I have seen recently:

planetlab24.gino-research.net.in.tum.de
10.32.64.124
49.129.197.35.bc.googleusercontent.com
abts-north-dynamic-142.110.68.182.airtelbroadband.in
173-20-152-84.client.mchsi.com

now, obviously i can understand the google one, and a few others. but, given the info and insight on these pages: https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.gethostbyaddr.php , and https://www.php.net/reserved.variables.server , why are the returns so different for different people? why does PHP see all different kinds of things? is the cause the way the user’s server is configured? some identifying info OF the server? and what about reserved IPs? like the “10.xx…” one I listed above? I’ve seen hundreds from that pool, and other blocks of reserved ones, and they have never had alpha-chars included in their captures. it’s always only the IP numbers. there a reason for that? really, all I’m looking for is why I see what I see. anyone help? furthermore, does anyone know if other server-side languages like c#, python, ruby or any js frameworks return different results than PHP ever would? thanks.

I tried parsing through first

https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/28167/The-Empire-of-Sexuality-An-Interview-with-Joseph-Massad

then even tried

www.google.com

and on both I get the following returned

post_url equals:
www.google.compost_title equals:
testpost_Threadybody equals:
Enter your posts...

URL equals: www.google.com

www.google.com is not a valid URL

Web page redirects after 2 seconds.

And here is the if statement that handles my filter for URLs

if(isset($_POST["submit"]) && !empty($_POST["url"]) && !empty($_POST["Title"])){
$URL = $conn -> real_escape_string($_POST["url"]) ;
$BodyText = $conn -> real_escape_string(nl2br($_POST["ThreadBody"])) ;
echo "<P>URL equals: " ; 
echo $URL ; 
echo "<P>" ; 
//Change to embed for youtube.


if (filter_var($URL, FILTER_VALIDATE_URL)) {
    echo("$URL is a valid URL");
	//Check if url is a youtube url 
	if (strpos($URL,'youtube') !== false) {
	    echo 'Youtube exists.';
	  $URL = preg_replace("/\s*[a-zA-Z\/\/:\.]*youtube.com\/watch\?v=([a-zA-Z0-9\-_]+)([a-zA-Z0-9\/\*\-\_\?\&\;\%\=\.]*)/i","<iframe width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"//www.youtube.com/embed/$1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen></iframe>",$URL);

	} else {
	    echo 'Youtube is not included .';
	   $URL = "<ahref ='" . $URL . "</a>" ;  
	}


	$Title = $conn -> real_escape_string($_POST["Title"]) ;
	$User = $_SESSION['username'];
	 
	 
	 $sql = "INSERT INTO Threads (Title, Users, ThreadBody, url)
     VALUES ('$Title', '$User','$BodyText','$URL')";
     if (mysqli_query($conn, $sql)) {
        echo "New record has been added successfully !";
     } else {
        echo "Error: " . $sql . ":-" . mysqli_error($conn);
     }

		} 
else {
    echo("$URL is not a valid URL");
		}

In the following code: echo $text[2] returns the word at that index but echo $key returns a blank.

Can someone explain why is array-search not working in this  indexed array?

It does work when I test it with a key => value type array.

<?php $myfile = fopen("test.txt", "r") or die("Unable to open file!");

while(!feof($myfile)) {

  $text[] = fgets($myfile); }

fclose($myfile);

$word = $_POST['word'];

$key = array_search($word, $text);

echo $key ?>

<?php
$db_host = "localhost";
$db_user ="root";
$db_pass ="";
$db_database ="allscores";

//////////////// CHECKING VARIABLE FILEDS IN A UPDATE QUERY //////////////////////////////////
//////////////// QUERY 1 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

/*
$db_database ="test";
$db_table ="users";
$RecNo = 1;			
		
$field1 = 'name';
$field2 = 'password';
$field3 = 'email'; 
$field4 = 'id';
$val1 = "Ajay";
$val2 = "howzatt";
$val3 = "me@mymail.com";


					$con = mysqli_connect($db_host,$db_user,$db_pass,$db_database) or die('Unable to establish a DB connection');
					$query = "UPDATE $db_table SET $field1 = ?,
							$field2 = ?, $field3 = ?
							WHERE $field4 = ? ";   // session terminated by setting the sessionstatus as 1 
					$stmt = $con->prepare($query);
					var_dump($stmt); 
					$stmt->bind_param('sssi',$val1,$val2,$val3,$RecNo);
					if($stmt->execute())
					{
						$count = $stmt->affected_rows;
						echo $count;
					}		
//////////////// QUERY 1  END /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
*/



//////////////// QUERY 2 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

$con = mysqli_connect($db_host,$db_user,$db_pass,$db_database) or die('Unable to establish a DB connection');
$table = 'scores';
$date = date('Y-m-d H:i:s');


/*
$prestr 	= "Mrt_M_";		
$STATUS		= $prestr."Status";
$S_R1 		= $prestr."Scr_1";
$S_R2 		= $prestr."Scr_2";
$PCT 		= $prestr."PPT";
$DPM 		= $prestr."DSP";
$TIMETAKEN 	= $prestr."TimeTaken";
*/


$STATUS		= "Mrt_M_Status";
$S_R1 		= "Mrt_M_Scr_1";
$S_R2 		= "Mrt_M_Scr_2";
$PPT 		= "Mrt_M_PPT";
$DSP 		= "Mrt_M_DSP";
$TIMETAKEN 	= "Mrt_M_TimeTaken";

$TimeOfLogin	=	$date;	
$no_of_logins	=	10;
$time_of_nLogin	=	$date;
$m_scr_row1		=	5;
$m_scr_row2		=	5;
$m_ppt			=	20;
$m_dsp			=	60;
$m_time			=	120;
$date			=	$date;
$RecNo			=	24;

		$query = "UPDATE $table SET 
				TimeOfLogin = ?,
				no_of_logins = ?,
				time_of_nLogin = ?,
				$S_R1 = ?,					
				$S_R2 = ?,					
				$PPT = ?,						
				$DSP = ?,						
				$TIMETAKEN = ?,				
				$STATUS = '1',				
				TimeOfLogout = ?,
				WHERE RecNo = ?";			
		$stmt = $con->prepare($query);

		var_dump($stmt);

		$stmt->bind_param('sisiiddssi',$TimeOfLogin,$no_of_logins,$time_of_nLogin,$m_scr_row1
					$m_scr_row2,$m_ppt,$m_dsp,$m_time,$date,$RecNo);
		if($stmt->execute()) echo " DONE !";


?>