my ($email)    = $dbh->quote($CGI->param('email')    || undef);
    my ($password) = $dbh->quote($CGI->param('password') || undef);

##</code><code>##

        my $tmp = <<EOF;
SELECT
    id
FROM
    users
WHERE
    LOWER(email) = LOWER($email)
        AND password = $password
EOF

        my $sth = &return_query($dbh, $tmp);

##</code><code>##

        my @row = $sth->fetchrow_array;

        $result{userID} = undef;

        if (@row) {
            $result{userID}         = $row[0];

##</code><code>##

   if ($@) {
        push(@{ $result{error} }, $@);
    }

    return encode_json(\%result);