[Resolved] Split and Array question

Fuzzio

Hi. I want my script to load a variable in my database in the form of "var1-var2-var3". How would I make it so it splits these variables up and places them in an array? (bare in mind that there won't always be 3 "var"s in the sequence) This is what I have so far:

$var="var1-var2-var3";
$array=split("-", $var);

but it doesn't seem to work.

I have also tried:

$var="var1-var2-var3";
$array=array(split("-", $var));

bubblenut

$var="var1-var2-var3";
$array_var=explode('-',$var);

But this is very bad database design.
HTH
Bubble

Fuzzio

Thanks for the help, but why is it a bad database design?

mrhappiness

cause it's very hard for example to count how many entries witrh var2 you have

and it's even more complicated if you want to count the number of entires with var2 and width var3

it's better do have one entry in your table for each var

what are you trying to do?

bubblenut

It's a one to many relationship right (one row in your table applies to many items in that field) Suppose in the future you decide to add some more information to those particular vars to enhance the site. It would get very messy to do this. Even if it's a small table you should really be making it into another table (well two probably) which link into this table. There is really not much of an overhead if you get the indexing right and it provides you with a lot more flexibility in the future.
If you give us a bit more of an idea as to what you're doing I could help you with the design.
Bubble

Fuzzio

It's a table from the PHP game I am designing. Each row is a country, and there are fields for "imports" and "exports". Using this method I can put all the imports in one cell and all the exports in another.

bubblenut

What do you mean by imports? Imported config/source applicaple to each country?

Fuzzio

No, imports as in goods and resources.

But I know what I'm doing now, thanks for the help.