Proper PHP MYSQL array usage

Question

I have not worked with arrays much in PHP. I have a table of colors. I want to load it into a multidimensional associative array because I am going to be using that table a lot and don't want to do selects over and over again.

I did:

$result = mysql_query("select * FROM color") or die(mysql_error());
$colors = "";
 while($colorrec = mysql_fetch_array($result)){
 $colors[$colorrec['ID']][0] = $colorrec['Description'];
 $colors[$colorrec['ID']][1] = $colorrec['HexCode'];
}

then when I want to access a colors information, I can just do something like:

echo "color code WHT";
echo "description ".$colors['WHT'][0];
echo "Hex Code ".$colors['WHT'][1];

Is this the correct way/methodology to do this?

Naftali · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-06 21:03:37Z

1

$colors = ""; //what?? this should be array()

This should be something like:

$result = mysql_query("select * FROM color") or die(mysql_error());
$colors = array();
while($colorrec = mysql_fetch_array($result)){
   $colors[$colorrec['ID']] = array();
   $colors[$colorrec['ID']]['Desc'] = $colorrec['Description'];
   $colors[$colorrec['ID']]['Hex'] = $colorrec['HexCode'];
}

Then you can do:

echo "color code WHT";
echo "description ".$colors['WHT']['Desc'];
echo "Hex Code ".$colors['WHT']['Hex'];

answered Dec 6, 2011 at 21:03

Naftali

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Comments

Jakub · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-06 21:03:11Z

0

Sure nothing wrong with going this way. Also if you get lost in your array, just do a quick print_r($array) and it will output the structure for you.

answered Dec 6, 2011 at 21:03

Jakub

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Comments

Jakub · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-06 21:12:06Z

0

try with:

$result = mysql_query("select * FROM color") or die(mysql_error());
$colors = array();
 while($colorrec = mysql_fetch_array($result)){
 $colors[$colorrec['ID']] = array( 
              $colorrec['Description'] , 
              $colorrec['HexCode'] );
}

echo "color code WHT";
echo "description ".$colors['WHT'][0];
echo "Hex Code ".$colors['WHT'][1];

edited Dec 6, 2011 at 21:12

Jakub

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answered Dec 6, 2011 at 21:05

dani herrera

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Comments

ksutha · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-06 21:34:52Z

0

Neal you can do as he mentioned, if you want more clean go OOP (PHP5)

    class Color 
    {
      $description ="";
      $hexcode = "";
      $someOther="";
    }



    $colors = array();
        $result = mysql_query("select * FROM color") or die(mysql_error());

        while($colorrec = mysql_fetch_array($result))
        {
          $color = new Color();
          $id=$colorrec['HexCode'];
          $color->description = $colorrec['Description'];
          $color->hexCode = $colorrec['HexCode'];
          $colors[$id] = $color;
        }

        echo $color['ID']->description;
        echo $color['ID']->hexCode;

answered Dec 6, 2011 at 21:34

ksutha

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Comments

Dr Casper Black · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-06 22:54:24Z

0

I use it like this:

$numfields = mysql_num_fields($result);
while($red = mysql_fetch_array($result)){
     for ($j=0; $j<$numfields; $j++ ) {
          $field_name = mysql_field_name($result, $j);
          //create Matrix
          $datapull[$i][$field_name] = $red[$field_name]; 
      }
      $i++;
 }
 mysql_free_result($result);
 var_dump($datapull);

This is more generic and harder to search, it should be used in class method or a function, so you pass the SQL and always expect the same format as a result.

edited Dec 6, 2011 at 22:54

answered Dec 6, 2011 at 22:39

Dr Casper Black

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