fql_query returns "Array" instead of name - facebook

Question

I am trying to create a simple fb app that retrieves the name of the user using fql_query.
Code :
require_once 'facebook.php';
$appapikey = 'xxxx';
$appsecret = 'xxxx';
$facebook = new Facebook($appapikey, $appsecret) ;
$user_id = $facebook->require_login();
$q = "SELECT name FROM user WHERE uid='$user_id'";
$name = $facebook->api_client->fql_query($q);
echo "Name : $name[0][name]";
Output:
Name : Array[name]
Can you tell me what's going wrong here?
Thanks!

Answer 1

Mistake is in this line:
echo "Name : $name[0][name]";
you are including $name[0][name] in quotes, this should be
echo "Name : {$name[0][name]}";
or
echo "Name : ".$name[0][name];

Answer 2

An FQL query always returns an array, even if there is only one item in the result. Think of the result as rows in a normal SQL query.

Answer 3

Any time that I use arrays or database/API calls in PHP I print_r($array_name) to see what was returned. So this:
$name = $facebook->api_client->fql_query("SELECT name FROM user WHERE uid=$user_id");
print_r($name);
Should return this:
Array
(
[0] => Array
(
[name] => First Last
)
)
Another thing, I never put tick marks around values/variables in FQL.
$q = "SELECT name FROM user WHERE uid=$user_id";
$name = $facebook->api_client->fql_query($q);
But when you print the value you should put single quotes around the reference to the named index (in this case, 'name') and you should not wrap it all in double quotes:
echo "Name : " . $name[0]['name'];