Calling items in array

[magicpants]

I have the following code, which opens up a connection to a database and stores the results in a 2D array. However, I can only reference the items in the array as follows:

$object[2]['address']

Is there any way of accessing the array element numerically as well as via the key name, like this...

$object[2][2]

TIA

----- CODE --------

$user = "user";
$host = "localhost";
$password = "pa$$w0rd";
$database = "books";

$link = mysql_connect($host, $user, $password) or die("Could not connect: " . mysql_error());
echo "connection open<br>\n";

$conn = mysql_select_db($database) or die("Could not open database: $database");
echo("connected to " . $database . "<br>\n");

$sql = "select * from customers";
$result=mysql_query($sql)or die('died');
$num_rows = mysql_num_rows($result);  
$j=0;
$x=1;
while($row=mysql_fetch_array($result)){  
	for($j=0;$j<$num_rows;$j++){
		$name = mysql_field_name($result, $j);
		$object[$x][$name]=$row[$name];
	}
	$x++;
}
mysql_free_result($result);

// echo "test: <". $object[2]['address'] . ">";

echo("<pre>");
print_r($object);
echo("</pre>");

[HalfaBee]

mysql_fetch_array() gets the array as an assoc. and numeric array.

From the manual

mysql_fetch_array() is an extended version of mysql_fetch_row(). In addition to storing the data in the numeric indices of the result array, it also stores the data in associative indices, using the field names as keys.

HalfaBee

[magicpants]

Thanks for your reply...

So my question is - how can I assign the contents of the query using mysql_fetch_array() and still have an array which is assoc. and numericically indexed?

MagicPants

[HalfaBee]

The array that is returned by mysql_fetch_array() has entries for ['address'] and [2] with the same value.

Do a print_r() on the returned array and you will see what I mean.

HalfaBee

[magicpants]

OK. Thanks I have it sorted now.

Only thing is when I test it by pulling out 9000 records and assigning them to the $object array it is very slow. Obviously I'm not going to be doing this in reality, but it gives me an idea of how well PHP & MYSQL performs - 16 seconds.

However, in outputing the the information directly from MYSQL using mysql_fetch_row and without assigning it to the $object array it is very fast - 8 seconds.

So do I really need to try and close the database as soon as possible by assigning everything to an array?

Closing the connection to the database as soon as possible used to be standard practice for me when programming in ASP and SQL Server. Is this still the case when using PHP?

I would be interested in peoples opions on this approach please.

Thanks

MagicPants

[HalfaBee]

The difference between the two tests is probably due to the network speed.

When you grab all the records into an array, it does this first then outputs it.

When you output in the loop the information can be sent at the same time as you grab the next record, thereby halving the time needed .

Closing the DB connection is probably a good idea if you are going to process the information after grabbing it and do lots of calculations.
Otherwise I wouldn't worry.

Halfabee

[magicpants]

The difference between the two tests should not be due to network speed as it is running on my local machine with both apache, mysql and php installed.

From what I have read, PHP closes the connection to a database after the page has been rendered. There seems to be ways to close the connection before then, but it looks like some of these closing database functions in PHP just don't work.

Anyway, thanks for your help.

MagicPants