How to read in from a mysql field and parse it this way

jediman

Hello all, question here 🙂

I have a field in my mysql database in a table, that goes like:
you have three values, say one,two,three;
and they are seperate by comma's, until the third value, which gets a semi colon at the end. Then it has the next three values, all seperated by commas and the process repeats. All in the same field. What I want is I need to know what kind of loop and how to do it, to have a php loop read from that field, and then place each of the three values in a text field accordingly (one,two,three) and then at the semi colon start a new line and repeate the processes until its done. How would I go about this? Many thanks in advance! I believe ive tried a standard loop and a foreach with no luck, so I hope someone knows something I dont 🙂

vaska

// make an array from the query/field
// explode will separate things at the ; into array elements
$arr = explode(";",$rs['fieldname']);

// count the number of elements in your array
$n = count($arr);

loop out your data $n number of times (if you need this info)...

sorry, i have to run, but i think this will get you rolling...

good luck...v

swr

Vaska's example using explode is on the right track. You'll probably need to use a nested loop though. The outer loop should explode on ";", and the inner loop should explode each of those results on the ",".

echo "<table>\n";
$arr1 = explode(';', $rs['fieldname']);
foreach ($arr1 as $element1) {
    echo "<tr>";
    $arr2 = explode(',', $element1);
    foreach ($arr2 as $element2) {
        echo "<td>$element2</td>";
    }
    echo "</tr>\n";
}
echo "</table>\n";

However, using delimited fields in a database is almost always a sign of bad database design. Google for "database normalization" to learn how to properly handle multiple values.

jediman

Yeah but I figure its MUCH easier this way since its a simple setup. Question...why after looping would it still explode an empty text field on a new line, and just show one box. Is there a way to tell it NOT to do that?

jediman

Anyone?

swr

From the [man]explode[/man] manual:

"If separator contains a value that is not contained in string, then explode() will return an array containing string."

You'll need to check for that condition to avoid doing the loop in that case...

if (strpos(';', $rs['fieldname']) !== false) {
// do it
}
else {
// don't do it
}

sidney

  <?php
$var = '1,2,3;4,5,6;7,8,9;';
$t=1;
$rows=explode(";",$var);
$count=count($rows);
echo "<table>";
for($i=0;$i<$count-1;$i++)
	{
	echo"<tr>";
	$items=explode(",",$rows[$i]);
	foreach($items as $value)
		{
		echo"<td><input name=\"item".$t."\" type=\"text\" value=\"".$value."\"></td>";
		$t++;
		}
	echo"</tr>";
	}
echo"</table>";
?>