PHP Post Is Not Recieving Vars Correctly

I have this script here:

//Tell the requester to output response as JSON
//header('Content-Type: application/json;charset=utf-8');

//POST information.
$name = $_POST['username'];
$pass = $_POST['password'];

$mysql_server = 'localhost';
$mysql_user = 'root';
$mysql_pass = '';

$mysql_dbname = 'test';

//Set up variables needed for middle-end
$return_code = 0;
$error_message = '';

//Connect to the Database
$conn = new mysqli($mysql_server, $mysql_user, $mysql_pass, $mysql_dbname);
if ($conn->connect_error)
{

    //Return an error (in JSON format) that MySQL server wont connect
    $return_code = -1;
    $error_message = 'Failed to connect to MySQL: ' . $conn->connect_error;
}
else
{
    //Query for a User/Pass match

    $sqlquery = "SELECT ucid FROM test WHERE ucid = '" . $name . "' AND password = '" . hash('sha256', $pass) . "'";
    $result = mysqli_query($conn, $sqlquery);

    if (mysqli_num_rows($result) > 0)
    {
     //On Successful User/Pass
            $return_code = 1;
    }
    elseif(mysqli_num_rows($result) == 0)
    {
            //On Failed User/Pass
            $return_code = 0;
            $error_message = 'Incorrect Username or Password';

    }
    else 
    {
        //Something went wrong
        $return_code = -1;
        $error_message = 'You messed something up real good.';
    }
}

if($return_code == 1)

{
    $jsonResults = array('return_code' => $return_code);
}
elseif ($return_code == (0 || -1))
{
    $jsonResults = array('return_code' => $return_code, 'error_message' => $error_message);
}


$echoJSON = json_encode($jsonResults, 1);

echo $echoJSON;
echo '

';
echo 'return code = ' . $return_code . ' and message: ' . $error_message;
echo '
Query Passed: ' . $sqlquery;
echo 'Username passed was: ' . $name . 'and Password passed was: ' . $pass;

?>

Basically put, you pass it a username & password, the script then connects to a MySQL server and does a SQL query of the username + the password after its been sha256 hashed. The point of the query is to see if the username + password is valid combination. If one of them is wrong, the query should show 0 results, thus resulting in an 'Incorrect username or password' message

However, when I run the script and echo the results, apparently nothing is getting passed:

Notice:  Undefined variable: jsonResults in C:\xampp\htdocs\alpha-test\db.php on line 62
null

return code = 0 and message: Incorrect Username or Password
Query Passed: SELECT ucid FROM test WHERE ucid = '' AND password = 'e3b0c44298fc1c149afbf4c8996fb92427ae41e4649b934ca495991b7852b855'Username passed was: and Password passed was: 

I do not know what I am doing wrong.

Answer

The problem seems to be something to do with postman ( I've never used that ). The best way to test this is to create a form on a new page and actually post the data and make sure that is working.

1) When I can't figure out why something doesn't work, I simplify the problem and reduce the possibility of other errors causing problems. So change your php script by adding these lines.

$name = $_POST['username'];
echo $name; 
exit;  

You need to make sure $name is getting set.

2) Create a form that posts to this page.

username: 
password: 

Submit the form and make sure you are capturing $_POST['username'] and $_POST['password'] before you worry about mysql or other issues.

3) Just so you know, I tried this locally and I had no problems posting that form and then having $name be set correctly. So the problem must be something to do with how you setup postman.

GL