PHP string concatenation returns null string
<p>Never seen anything like this, so let me sum it up as best as i can.  We have pre-existing html in an <code>$output</code> variable, then we query the database for some info, and concatenate it to <code>$output</code>.  The end result is a NULL string.  How can this possibly happen?</p>

<p>Simple example: </p>

<pre><code>&lt;?php 
  $output = 'test';
  $query = 'select * from table where uid=23';
  $result = mysql_fetch_object(mysql_query($query));
  // at this point result-&gt;value looks like:
  // "meh Ã¢Â€ÂœblahÃ¢Â€Â meh" (we dump it out to make sure)
  $output .= $result-&gt;value;
  //at this point, $output has become null
?&gt;
</code></pre>

<p>Am I losing my mind?  Thanks for any help guys.</p>
