Help understanding a statement

[kevo1162]

Hi,

I'm working through a book and even thought i'm not encountering errors i don't understand something that's in one of the examples

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
    $people[$row['people_id']] = $row['people_fullname'];
  }

What exactly does this mean?

$people[$row['people_id']] = $row['people_fullname'];

Is it just finding the entry of 'people_fullname' that matches 'people_id' that was defined earlier in the script?

[laserlight]

Is it just finding the entry of 'people_fullname' that matches 'people_id' that was defined earlier in the script?

No, it is assigning the value of $row['people_fullname'] to the array element $people[$row['people_id']].

We could also write it as:

while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
    $people_index = $row['people_id'];
    $people[$people_index] = $row['people_fullname'];
}

[kevo1162]

I guess what I'm not understanding is the variable in square brackets next to another variable
eg

$people[$people_index]

What does that mean/do?

[laserlight]

What does that mean/do?

That accesses the element at index $people_index in the array named $people. If that does not make any sense to you, you need to read the PHP manual on arrays.