repeat until find

[devil_online]

Hi, I have a script that creates a name, and I want to insert this name in the database.

However I don't wan't to insert a name that already exists in the database.

My real problem is repeat the process of creation of the until it finds a valid name

any ideas?

[Installer]

One way:

$query = "SELECT name FROM my_table";
$result = mysql_query($query);
while ($row = mysql_fetch_row($result))  {
    $array[] = $row[0];
}
do {
    $name = create_name();
} while (in_array($name, $array));

[crazychris]

something like:

$orgname=$_FILE['name'];
$newname=$orgname;
$attempt=0;
while (mysql_num_rows("select * from table where filename='$newname'")) {
     $newname=$attempt . "_" . $orgname;
}
// insert it here.

This will check for foo.bar and if it exists, try 1_foo.bar then 2_foo.bar and so on until an original one is found... Assuming you don't double up too often, it should find a spare name pretty quickly.

[Wynder]

You can always enforce this through data integrity options via the database -- make the name field 'unique' and just try to insert. After you run the query, check mysql_error() function to see if the insert failed.

Might beat grabbing every name from your database and trying to find a match.

devil_online wrote:

Hi, I have a script that creates a name, and I want to insert this name in the database.

However I don't wan't to insert a name that already exists in the database.

My real problem is repeat the process of creation of the until it finds a valid name

any ideas?

[Installer]

Might--if the created name is unique the first time every time, else multiple queries will be run as in cc's solution. Plus the query won't know magically what's unique; it'll still have to check each name.

[Wynder]

Perhaps you didn't understand...

1) In the MySQL database schema set the 'name' field as unique.
2) mysql_query("INSERT INTO name VALUES('Existing Name')");
3) if(mysql_errno() == 1062) echo "That's a Duplicate Name.";

Voila.

Instead of pulling every record for comparison, run just the insert query and let the database do the job of maintaining data integrity.

Installer wrote:

Might--if the created name is unique the first time every time, else multiple queries will be run as in cc's solution. Plus the query won't know magically what's unique; it'll still have to check each name.

[Installer]

Yes, I understood, but thank you for repeating.

[devil_online]

Thanks to all, but I couldn't make it work

I've try this

 
function create_name() {  

$firstnames = array("Peter", "John", "Carl");
$lastnames = array("Lowe", "Pit","Sagan");
$name1 = $firstnames[array_rand($firstnames)]." ".$lastnames[array_rand($lastnames)]; 
} 


$query = "SELECT names FROM home"; 
$result = mysql_query($query); 
while ($row = mysql_fetch_row($result))  { 
    $array[] = $row[0]; 
} 
do { 
    $name = create_name(); 
} while (in_array($name, $array));

How can I make it insert the name and I want to echo the result?

thanks