Advanced Database Querys

Anon

Hello all I am trying to write some functions that can parse querys.

I.E.

function _array($query) {
$r = mysql_query($query);
return($a = mysql_fetch_array($r));
}

    $q = "select * from users";
    _array($q);
   echo $a[name];

See the problem is that it will not return the $a... Does anyone have any ideas?? Thanks in advance Jared

Anon

Are you sure that you are connected to the database? (i.e. mysql_connect() and mysql_select_db() )

Also, keep in mind that mysql_fetch_array only grabs one row. You need to set up a loop to step through all the results of the query . . . then return that 2-dimensional array.

Read the manual. It's quite helpful.
http://www.phpbuilder.com/manual/function.mysql-fetch-array.php

katzkek

You have to do something like

$a=_array($q);

Otherwise, the $a isn't assigned to anything. The other option is to make $a a global variable.

Anon

how would that look????

Anon

Yes I am sure that I am connected to the database I have a function called opendb() that is opened before the other code. Thanks

Anon

What is confusing about that?

If a function returns something, you have to store it somehow . . . otherwise it goes nowhere.

Your function _array() returns the contents of $a, but it doesn't really return something called $a.

You won't see anything if you do this:
_array($q);

But you'll be able to work with the data if you do this:
$foo = _array($q);

The data that was returned by _array is being returned by $foo. Perhaps you have confusion between about local variables. Read the manual.
http://www.phpbuilder.com/manual/language.variables.scope.php

Variables defined inside a function are not available outside the function unless you specify them as globals.

Anon

Thanks. After I sent that I had a light come on. Yes I felt kinda stupid. I have that working but now it won't work in a loop. Any ideas???

[deleted]

Your concept (The code you wrote above) would work, but it's kind of logically kludgy.

A better way to do it would be to do something like:

function _array($query) {
//Query or die with an error
$r=mysql_query($query) or die(mysql_error());
//Declaring an array may not be needed.
$a=array();
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($r)) {
//Add each item in the result set to the array.
$a[]=$row[name];
}
//return the array you just built.
return($a);
}

//Assign what array returns to the
$a = array($query);

//Now loop through the $a array to output each row of names from the table.

while($item = $a) {
echo $item."<br />";
}