Using a variables value to call another variable

wisemaar

Hi, I am sure that somebody must have come across this problem before, but I have been looking all over for a solution!

Scenario....
I have a database with 11 fields, which are all called the same, except with a different number at the end, ie Player_1, Player_2..... Player_11

I have retrieved the "value" from the database using the following : $row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result), and then extract($row) to give me each "Field" as a variable... ie $Player_1, $Player_2, etc.....
All 11 fields may not be filled in, so I also have $Players, which has how many "Players" there are.

Problem....
I want to display the values of each $Player_x using a while loop.

$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result); // Gets the data from database.
extract($row); // Breaks array down to individual variables.

$i=1; // Set Up a counter
while ($i<=$Players) {
$a= 'Player_'.$i; // $a becomes $Player_1 then next time $Player_2 etc...
echo $a; // Display it!
$a++ //increment $i and run again!
}

This works fine, appart from I can not get the value from the Initial Player_1 variable to display...

I hope this makes sense!

Thanks for any help!

joshmpratt

First off, I hope that you are incrementing $i instead of $a in your real code.

Your code here simply displays the value you set to $a. You don't have any code at all to get the values in those fields from the database.

In your loop, depending on how you are retrieving from the database, you'll want to add something like this after you set the $a variable:

echo $row[$a];

For loops are nice too. I implemented the code into a for loop here:

for ($i=1; $i<=$Players; $i++) {
    $a='Player_'.$i;
    echo $a.': '.$row[$a];
}

wisemaar

Thanks for the quick reply...
After spending hours looking at something, you forget the obvious!

joshmpratt

No problem wisemaar. It happens to all of us.

Weedpacket

wisemaar wrote:
All 11 fields may not be filled in, so I also have $Players, which has how many "Players" there are.

I recommend you look into the subject of database normalisation, because you're starting to dig yourself a hole here that will take a lot of digging to get out of if it gets any deeper.