Combine two fields into one array

getc

I need to know if its possible to combine the results of 2 fields into one array, either using array_merge or some other method.

This is part of my code.
$result = mysql_query("SELECT DISTINCT Specialty1, Specialty2 order by Specialty1",$db);

$myrow = mysql_fetch_array($result);

$spec_combine = array_merge($myrow[Specialty1],$myrow[Specialty2]);

I end up with "Array" as the value for $spec_combine. Looking for some insight into this. Thanks.

AstroTeg

What's your desired ultimate end result?

You looking to have "Specialty1 Specialty2" as one string?

If so, you could do that from the query itself:

SELECT DISTINCT Specialty1, Specialty2, CONCAT(Specialty1, " ", Specialty2) AS mystring order by Specialty1

Where mystring becomes the field with both Specialty1 and 2 put together (the space is optional - remove the '," " ' if you don't need it).

getc

Well, i don't want to concatenate the strings per se. I want to merge the 2 arrays. Specialty1 contains the specialties of personnel. Specialty2 contains secondary specialties of the same personnel. I need to loop through both field's values as if they were one array, so i can put those values into a select style form element. So say i have a drop down menu to select from. The first 4 selections could come from specialty1, and say 3 more come from specialty2. But the whole list needs to be organized alphabetically.

Currently in my selection menu, i get the value "Array" for each row, instead of the actual value, using array_merge on the 2 mysql queries. Hope this helps clarify things. Thanks.

AstroTeg

I think I see where you're trying to go. I can tell you that your code here:

$spec_combine = array_merge($myrow[Specialty1],$myrow[Specialty2])

isn't going to work as you might think since $myrow[Specialty1] and $myrow[Specialty2] are not arrays (they're just elements of another array). And the end result is $spec_combine will become an array (which is why you're seeing PHP dump "Array" when you try printing that variable out).

Hmm...

This isn't the only way to do it, but its one that comes to me at this hour:

Run your query like you have it. Loop each record and take Specialty1 and Specialty2 and assign it to an array. Something like this:

$myarray = array();

... loop records ...
// where $SpecialtyX is the DB values
  $myarray[count($myarray)] = $Specialty1;
  $myarray[count($myarray)] = $Specialty2;  

... end loop records ...

Then you end up with 1 array with all the available specialties. Now to sort it, you could just do the following:

sort($myarray);

If sort() doesn't work the way you like, check out the various sorting options available to PHP.

I'm not sure how your table setup looks, but it looks like you're bumping up against a table design issue. Like elements should be grouped together in the same field/table. If this was an option, you could then just query for one field and perform an order by on that field and you wouldn't have to write a lot of PHP support code...