Help with database class

Tdi_dude

Hi, Im new to classes and was wondering if anyone colud show me the best way of returning the results from a MYSQL_FETCH_ARRAY() from a class.

The class should be able to work with any table.

I have it returning through an array and then extracting it once its returned. But I am looking for a way of doing like the 1 by 1 method below.

while($row = msql_fetch_array($result)) {
echo $row["client_id"];
echo $row["fullname"];
}

I dont want to do it in the method I have used below as results from a big query would make a huge array, which would use tie up server memory.

Hope this makes sence

Below is my code.

This is index.php:-

<?
include ("connect.obj.php");

$db = new database();
$db->serverConnection();
$db->useDB("towns");
$db->sql("SELECT DISTINCT * FROM towns ORDER BY county ASC LIMIT 10");
$result=$db->fetchData();

extract($result[1]);

echo $county;
?>

</form>
</body>
</html>

################################################

And here is my class:-
<?
class database{
var $con;
var $useDb;
var $query;
var $sql;
var $host = "TOSH";
var $user = "root";
var $password = "";
var $value;
var $dbName; // Database name

function serverConnection(){
	$this->con =@MYSQL_CONNECT($this->host,$this->user,$this->password) OR DIE (@$this->_errors("There was a problem connecting to the database server"));					
}
function useDb($dbName){
	$this->useDb=@MYSQL_SELECT_DB($dbName) OR DIE (@$this->_errors("Unable to select the database $dbName"));
}
function sql($sql){
	$this->query=MYSQL_QUERY($sql) OR DIE (@$this->_errors("Unable to run query $sql"));
}
function fetchData(){
	$this->numRows=@MYSQL_NUM_ROWS($this->query) OR DIE (@$this->_errors("Unable to count number of rows"));

	if ($this->numRows){
		while($val = @MYSQL_FETCH_ARRAY($this->query)){
			$arr[]=$val;

		}
		return $arr;
	} else {
		return false;
	}
}

function _errors($txt){	
	echo $txt."<br>";
}

}
?>

Weedpacket

Hard to see what the problem is. For one thing, if the query produces a big result set, then you've probably got a lot of data to return however you cut it.

Secondly, PHP4's memory management uses reference counting; if you say $a=$b, the only increase in memory consumption is that taken up by noting that there is now a new variable called '$a'; the data itself isn't copied anywhere. That only happens if $a or $b are altered - so that the original value can be kept for the other.

So if you have an array $huge of a hundred thousand elements, all different, and you go:

$also_huge = $huge;

You're still only storing a hundred thousand elements, not two hundred thousand.

So go ahead and return a huge array (and unset() the result set once you've built it). If you're only reading from it, it won't need to be copied anywhere.

There's an article at Zend.com that describes PHP's memory management more fully.