[Resolved] assigning implode values

perpetualshaun

I have a feeling I may just have to break down and write a function to do this, but I figured I'd ask for help here first.

I have an array of category names, and then I have a serialized array of numbers stored in the database w/ the corresponding id numbers for the categories. So here is what I want to do:

implode(", ", unserialize($item["category"]))

But of course, this prints out a comma-seperated list of the numbers. How do I out the $category_name_array[] var around those numbers to print the NAMES in that list instead of the numbers? I tried putting it in a couple different places, and neither worked.

Thanx

devinemke

I have an array of category names...

maybe i'm missing something obvious here but why not simply feed that array into implode rather than the serialized one with the numbers?

$comma_separated_cat_names = implode(',', $categories);

perpetualshaun

Sorry - I don't think I explained that part well enough. The category_name_array is already created from another query. So the implode() is pulling the numbers from MySQL, and I'm looking for a way to pull the values from the matching key value of the category name array.

So right now, it would display something like Categories: 1,3, 4

And I want it to display something like Categories: Scissors, Crayons, Markers

Where $category_name_array[1] = Scissors, etc. etc.

devinemke

i still don't think i totally undertsand. you have two arrays. one with category names and the other with category numbers. how do they relate to each other? where/how do the numbers match up to the names? in your database table do you have something like this?:

cat_id (number field)
cat_name (varchar field)

if so, then simply pull them both out in your query and create an array that has the cat_id as the keys and the cat_name as the values.