To "$" or not to "$" - that is the question

This is actually a follow up on a tread I did today but really took a new twist. Hope I didn't inapropriately start a new post here.

I have this mini PHP prog that had these 2 MySQL statements:

$mysql_select_db('joesauto', $mysql_link);
$mysql_close($mysql_link);

My host provider indicated that the "$" signs shouldn't be here on the front. But all the examples I see everywhere has them.

The omission did indeed fix the problem, but how do I know when to exclude these and when to include them.

Thanks

You shouldn't have the "$" signs infront of those two statements EVER. mysql_select_db() and mysql_close() are functions, and the "$" sign only precedes variables.

I'd re-look at your examples....if they have the dollar sign proceeding them then their code is wrong.