Building a dynamic sql query with php (using variables passed in from flash)

1

okay tha thread title is too long!

i’m outputting xml from php that makes a sql query to a mysql database.
that all works if I hardcode in the query.

i’d like to access variables i’m passing in from flash (via loadvars, POST method) and use them in my query.

it should be simple but I’m pretty much a php noob. if anyone can shed some light that’d be appreciated!

i get this xml back (traced out of flash) with accompanying error:

<?xml version=“1.0” encoding=“UTF-8”?><datapacket><br />
<b>Warning</b>: mysql_fetch_array(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in <b>/home/virtual/site370/fst/var/www/html/products/flashDIr/getDetails.php</b> on line <b>16</b><br />
</datapacket>

this is my php:

<?php 

//this line includes the database connection variables
include_once("config.php");
//set vars from flash
$first = $first;
$last = $last;

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM members WHERE last=$last AND first=$first ORDER BY last"); 

// And now we need to output an XML document 
// We use the names of columns as <row> properties. 

echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>'; 
echo '<datapacket>'; 
while($row=mysql_fetch_array($result)){ 
    $line = '<member last="'.$row[last].'" first="'.$row[first].'" user="'.$row[user].'" pass="'.$row[pass].'" address1="'.$row[address1].'" address2="'.$row[address2].'" city="'.$row[city].'" state="'.$row[state].'" zip="'.$row[zip].'" home="'.$row[home].'" work="'.$row[work].'" fax="'.$row[fax].'" email="'.$row[email].'" photo="'.$row[photo].'"/>'; 
    echo $line; 
} 
echo '</datapacket>'; 
?>