Reading a database into an array

[marinelife]

This is likely absurdly simply but I can't seem to do it.
I have a database of midis with id, title, filename, filesize and play length. I have been using a system which requires an HTML file for each midi which is absurdly complex. I am certain I can accomplish this through 1 php file.

First, I need to read the database into a 2 dimesional array, then there is a random function which I have found in the php manual so I can randomly pick an element of the array.

However, I cannot seem to get the code right to read this database table (midis) into an array and actually see through some echo command that it has been accomplished.

Can anyone help?

thanks,
bob Betts

[Anon]

I use this, works great.

while ($val = mysql_fetch_array($result))
$array[] = $val;
print_r($array);

I would put a little error checking in there though 🙂

Chris Lee
[e-mail]

[omegaorion]

If you wanted an array like this:

$arrMidi[0]['filename'] = 'whatever.mid';
$arrMidi[0]['size'] = 32;
$arrMidi[0]['author'] = 'me';
$arrMidi[1]['filename'] = 'other.mid';
$arrMidi[1]['size'] = 48;
$arrMidi[1]['author'] = 'you';
...

you could do something like this:

$midi_result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM miditableName");

while($currentMidi = mysql_fetch_assoc($midi_result))
{
$arrMidi[] = array
(
'filename'=>$currentMidi['filename'],
'size'=>$currentMidi['size'],
'author'=>$currentMidi['author']
);
}

you could check the array like this:

while(list($key1, $val1) = each($arrMidi))
{
while(list($key2, $val2) = each($val1))
echo '$arrMidi[',$key1,'][',$key2,'] = ',$val2,"<br>\n";
}

[marinelife]

Hi Chris,
Thanks, I finally did do something very like that:

$result = mysql_db_query($dbname, $query, $link) or die ("Could not open the Database, Please email bob");

$myrow = mysql_fetch_array($result);

//$n=0 ; ($n here was to get the midi id in the database to be included)
do {
// if ($n > 0) {

			$midis["$n"]["Title"]=$myrow["Title"]	;
			$midis["$n"]["File"]=$myrow["File"]	;
			$midis["$n"]["File_size"]=$myrow["File_size"]	;
			$midis["$n"]["Play_length"]=$myrow["Play_length"]	;

// }
$n=$n+1 ;

} while ($myrow = mysql_fetch_array($result));

I checked it with an:
echo $midis[$z] [Title] ;

and varied $ Worked fine but I ran into another stumbling block. I am using the meta refresh to signal the end of one midi and that another should begin:
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="100; url=<?php echo $PHP_SELF;?>">
100 is seconds and that will be replaced by a variable which represents the play time of the midi in sec + The download time of the next midi based on a connect speed of 28k.

problem is that a variable needs to be passed so the next time through the program, it knows what to do. When I tried to include a /1 in the url with another <?php echo $n?> above it killed it by tacking on /1 then /1/1 then /1/1/1 with each time through.

Do you have any ideas on how to pass a variable so I can tell it ok, so the first midi is finished, now find the next.

I was hoping to be able to save the array so the database did not have to be re-read each time and that failed also, even though I declared midis to be global at the top before the head info.

At this time I can only see re-reading the database each time and then picking a random midi.

bob betts
http://marinelifemag.com