Separating a string of numbers

Quirk

I have a very simple mysql table which lists a number of record IDs and then has one field which lists all related record IDs, eg:
RecordID | Related
006 | 357, 440, 563, 564, 564, 603, 745, 745

I'd like to pull up the Related Ids and split them into individual numbers so I can put in a hyperlink to each one.

So, this is the simple way to extract data:

$query = "select * from records"; 
$result = mysql_query($query) or die("Couldn't execute query");

while ($row= mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
			$RecordID = $row["RecordID"];
			$Related = $row["Related"]; 

echo "<b>RecordID:</b> $RecordID<b>  Related records:</b> $Related<br>";    

}

What do I do to $Related to break it down?

Please help, I'm lost!

laserlight

That is not particularly good database design. Use another table to record the related IDs. You might want to read up a little on Database Normalization and Design Techniques.

NogDog

If you are stuck with that database design for now, you could break that string down into an array of numbers with:

$Related = preg_split(',\s*', trim($row['related']));

You could then do a foreach() on the $Related array to do whatever you need to do with each number.

Quirk

Some of the numbers were wrong, not that it really matters, but the corrected questions is

I have a very simple mysql table which lists a number of record IDs and then has one field which lists all related record IDs, eg:
RecordID | Related
006 | 357, 440, 563, 564r, 564v, 603, 745r, 745v

I'd like to pull up the Related Ids and split them into individual numbers so I can put in a hyperlink to each one.

So, this is the simple way to extract data:

$query = "select * from records"; 
$result = mysql_query($query) or die("Couldn't execute query"); 

while ($row= mysql_fetch_array($result)) { 
            $RecordID = $row["RecordID"]; 
            $Related = $row["Related"]; 

echo "<b>RecordID:</b> $RecordID<b>  Related records:</b> $Related<br>";     

}

I have now discovered that

while ($row= mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
	$RecordID = $row["RecordID"];
	$chars = preg_split('/, /', $row['Related'], -1, PREG_SPLIT_OFFSET_CAPTURE);
print_r ($chars);

outputs

Array (
[0] => Array ( [0] => 357 [1] => 0 )
[1] => Array ( [0] => 440 [1] => 4 )
[2] => Array ( [0] => 563 [1] => 9 )
[3] => Array ( [0] => 564r [1] => 14 )
[4] => Array ( [0] => 564v [1] => 20 )
[5] => Array ( [0] => 603 [1] => 26 )
[6] => Array ( [0] => 745r [1] => 31 )
[7] => Array ( [0] => 745v [1] => 37 ) )

instead of the list
[357, 440, 563, 564r, 564v, 603, 745r, 745v]

So there is progress.

Next question, how do I make the individual arrays into just their numbers?

I already solve the problem by having two tables, that's what I'm trying to improve, cutting down all the duplication of data input.

Quirk

Full solution at

devshed