This code is supposed to get the user id from my database but it returns this : Resource id #6
So how would I code this to make it return the user id?Here is my code so far and I know that mysql_query is becoming outdated:
<?php
include("login_check.php");
include("dbconnect.php");
mysql_select_db("maxgee_close2");
$username = $_COOKIE['maxgee_me_user'];
$user_id = mysql_query("select user_id from users where username = '$username'");
echo "$user_id";
?>
mysql_connect("localhost", "mysql_user", "mysql_password") or
die("Could not connect: " . mysql_error());
mysql_select_db("maxgee_close2");
$result = mysql_query("select user_id from users where username = '$username'");
$row = mysql_fetch_array($result);
echo $row['user_id'];
mysql_free_result($result);
That code it's not supposed to return the ID, but a resource! You then need to access the data in that resource, Read here: http://www.tizag.com/mysqlTutorial/mysqlfetcharray.php (or maybe the official PHP docs)
From the mysql_query() documentation:
For SELECT, SHOW, DESCRIBE, EXPLAIN and other statements returning resultset, mysql_query() returns a resource on success, or FALSE on error.
...
The returned result resource should be passed to mysql_fetch_array(), and other functions for dealing with result tables, to access the returned data.
tl;dr mysql_query returns a resource that you have to pass to another function such as mysql_fetch_array(). The ressource itself doesn't contain your rows.
mysql_*functions in new code. They were removed from PHP 7.0.0 in 2015. Instead, use prepared statements via PDO or MySQLi. See Why shouldn't I use mysql_* functions in PHP? for more information.