Require/Include and Undefined Variables in PHP

Question

SOLVED: The error had nothing to do with require or include. It was completely unrelated to the question. Sorry about that. :(

I thought I had an understanding of require/include until now. I have a file named file_one that has something like this, $user_data = return_user_data_as_array() . My second file file_two , calls $user_data . Now, when I do a include 'file_two.php' into the file_one page after the functions and variables have been called, the page returns with undefined variable user_data . I thought that if you include/require a file into your php code it would pick up any variables written in the original file? How would I fix this?

Edit: I also want to mention that although the undefined variable error is popping up on my screen, the "undefined" variables are correctly echoed out.

File One

//this require_once holds the function user_data()

require_once 'core/init.php';

$user_id = 1;

$profile_data = user_data($mysqli, $user_id); 

//this calls file two
require_once 'file_two.php';

File Two or file_two.php

echo $profile_data['full_name'];

Answer 1

The key thing here is to have your include before not after the function call. Also just include the function and then call it in file two.

Answer 2

I think you must have an error elsewhere on the page. If you're defining the variable outside of a function or class and you're including the file that uses it after it's been defined it should work fine:

file_one.php

<?php
function return_user_data_as_array(){
    return array('name'=>'BenD');
}

$user_data = return_user_data_as_array();

include('file_two.php');
?>

file_two.php

<?php
print_r( $user_data );
?>

Result:

Array
(
    [name] => BenD
)

This should all work fine. Your error is probably arising elsewhere (for instance, you might be calling $user_data from inside a function without specifying global $user_data , or you're calling $user_data somewhere in file_one.php accidentally?)

EDIT

Now that you've shown some code, I imagine that the problem is that user_data() isn't returning an array that includes the full_name key. Try print_r($profile_data) to see what the array looks like. I'm guessing that the problem lies in what's being returned from user_data() (if anything! make sure it includes a return $x clause in there! I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out a logical error when the only problem was that my function didn't return anything)

Answer 3

The answer had nothing to do with the problem in the question. The code in the question is correct.