Error "No se puede utilizar el valor de retorno de la función en el contexto de escritura" en PHP

Error grave: no se puede usar el valor de retorno de la función en el contexto de escritura en la línea 3,

¿En qué casos se activan tales errores?

Mi programa:

 //QUERY VARIABLE
 $query="select * form user where user_name='$user_name' and user_password='sha($user_password)'";

 //ESTABLISHING CONNECTION
 $result=mysqli_query($dbc,$query)or die('Error Querying Database');

 while($row=mysqli_num_rows($result)==1)
 {
  //SET COOKIE
  setcookie('user_name',$row['user_name']);
  setcookie('user_id',$row['id']);
  $query="select * form user";
  $result=mysqli_query($dbc,$query)or die('Error Querying Database');
  $page_url='http://'.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].dirname($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']).'/index.php';
  header('Location'.$page_url);
 }

 //TERMINATING CONNECTION
 mysqli_close($dbc);
 }
 else
 {
  $error_msg='Please type both user name and password correctly to login';
 }
//}
}
else
{
 $page_url='http://'.$_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].dirname($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']).'/register.php';
 header('Location'.$page_url);
}
}
if($output_form)
{
?>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
 <title>Mismatch - Log In</title>
 <link rel="stylesheet" href="stylesheets/style.css" media="all" />
</head>
<body class="body_style">
 <?php
 echo('<label class="signin_label">'.$error_msg.'</label>');
 ?>

<h2>Mismatch - Where Matches Happen...</h2>
<fieldset>
 <legend>Mismatch - Log In</legend>
 <form method="post" action="<?php $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']; ?>"><!--Self Referencing Form-->
 <label class="signin_label">USER NAME</label>
 <input type="text" name="user_name" title="Enter Your Account User Name" class="signin_textbox" value="<?php if(!empty($_POST['user_name']))$_POST['user_name']; ?>" /><br />
 <label class="signin_label">PASSWORD</label>
 <input type="password" name="user_pwd" title="Enter Your Account Password" class="signin_textbox" value="" /><br />
</fieldset>
 <input type="submit" name="login_submit" title="Click To Log In" value="Log In" class="button" />
<?php
}
?>
</body>
</html>

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