Creating Array

Anon

I posted this before, but maybe in a dead thread.

I have a MySQL database like this:

ID | Material | Packaging | Weight

01 | Plastic | Box | 10 kg
02 | Wood | Reel | 5 kg
03 | Plastic | Reel | 5 kg
04 | Metal | Box | 10 kg
05 | Metal | Reel | 5 kg

I can retrieve an array (e.g. Material) and loop through it using 'while' and 'echo', or 'printf' etc., and get a print out like this:

Plastic
Wood
Plastic
Metal
Metal

but is there a way to loop through the array and produce another array with these elements which can then be manipulated further, e.g. to remove the duplicates?

I have done a lot of searches but can only find ways of printing this to the browser, not producing and retrieving a result. I'm sure there's a simple answer.

sprintf seems to produce a string, but I can't find info on a way of using the returned result.

tasistro

Fetch it from the dbase with

SELECT distinct(material) FROM my_table

Will return

wood
plastic
metal

order may change though

Saludos
Gerardo

Anon

Thanks for that Gerardo

It solves the current problem, and prints into a dropdown I'm using, but is there an easy way to turn that list into an array for other uses?

amcgrath

Yea: you have one array with all values (duplicates are here): $all_values.... Then remove the duplicates assigning it to another array like this: $uni_values = array_unique($all_values) ....