associative arrays with text index

Anon

I have a db table where there is an entry (which contains their name) for each post a user makes. I can get the data from the database with no problem, but I'm trying to create an associate array with the username as the key. The code (with some cruft removed to simplify it for the example) I have below almost works, but instead of the username, I end up with a number:

while(list($username, $otherdata) = mysql_fetch_row($result)) {
$post_counts[$username]++;
}

//
// sort by count in descending order
//
rsort($post_counts);

//
// show the $top users and number of posts
//
for ($i = 0; $i < $top; $i++) {
list($uname, $pcount) = each($post_counts);
echo "$uname: $pcount post(s)<br>\n";
}

For example:

0: 30 uploads
1: 9 uploads
2: 3 uploads
3: 3 uploads
4: 1 uploads

What do I need to do to get the username used as the key? The names exist; if I echo $username in the while loop, it has the correct values.

thanks,
gene

Anon

After you have nade the query, assuming the results idenetifier is $results

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($results,MYSQL_ASSOC)){
echo $row['uname'].': '.$row['pcount'].' uploads<BR>';
}

Anon

That just gives me all the records, doesn't it?. What I want is the top N users (where N=5 or N=10, for example).

So I'm getting all the records, and creating an associative array, where the key is the user name, and the value is the count of the records with that user name. Then sorting that descending, and printing the first N array values and their keys.

For example, if I had records:

Fred
Gene
Sparhawk
Gene
Sharhawk
Gene

I'd end up with:

$upcount = array("Fred" => 1, "Gene" => 3, "Sparhawk" => 2, );

I'd then sort that array descending by values, and end up with:

$upcount = array("Gene" => 3, "Sparhawk" => 2, "Fred" => 1);

Then I could print the top 2 entries or whatever.

However, what I'm ending up with is something like:

$upcount = array(0 => 3, 1 => 2, 2 => 1)

i.e., the keys are numbers instead of the user names.

I'm not sure if I'm explaining this correctly or not. It's clear in my mind :-)

thanks,
gene

Anon

I figured out a solution, by storing the name as well:

$post_counts = array("name" => array(0, "name));

while(list($username, $otherdata) =1 mysql_fetch_row($result)) {
$post_counts[$username][0]++;
$post_counts[$username][1] = $username;
}

<etc.>

But I'm still curious what happened to the text keys...

thanks,
gene