Explode() or preg_split() ?

[Dalixam]

I have a TINYTEXT field in my table where some names are listed like this:

name,email,date
name,email,date
etc.

As you can see, each user's name, email, and date is seperated by a comma, and each user is seperated by a line break.

I want to pull this from the db and place it in an array, but I can't get it to work. I started with explode() but after some searching on these forums I realized I maybe should use preg_split, but I can't get that to work either

This is what I came up with using explode:

$results = mysql_query("SELECT users FROM table");
while ($credits = mysql_fetch_array($results)) {

$up = explode("<br />",$credits[users]);
$up_lines = explode(",",$up);

$up_author = $up_lines[1];
$up_email = $up_lines[2];
$up_date = $up_lines[3];

echo $up_author;
} 

Am I completely off track?

[Aes]

Try quoting your array index strings when they are not integers.

In the database, is each line separated by an actual <br /> or is it a carriage return? In the case of the latter, \n may work better:

<?php
$results = mysql_query("SELECT users FROM table");
while($credits = mysql_fetch_array($results)) {
     /*
     * try the following line with multiple variations
     * like '\n', "\n\n", '\n\n', et cetera if you aren't
     * explicitly using <br /> in your database data
     */
     $up = explode("\n",$credits['users']);
     $up_lines = explode(",",$up);
     $up_author = $up_lines[1];
     $up_email = $up_lines[2];
     $up_date = $up_lines[3];
     echo $up_author;
}
?>

[redemption]

$results = mysql_query("SELECT users FROM table");
while ($credits = mysql_fetch_array($results)) {

$up = explode("\n",$credits[users]);  // seperate by newline
foreach $up as $up_lines
{
  $up_lines = explode(",",$up);  // separate by ,

  $up_author = $up_lines[0];
  $up_email = $up_lines[1];
  $up_date = $up_lines[2];

  echo $up_author;
} 

each field has several of these lines separated by newlines so when you do this:

$up = explode("\n",$credits[users]); 

$up is an array of lines of name,email,date... now for each of these lines in the array, you've to further explode them lines again...

<<edit>> your array indices should also start from 0

[Dalixam]

Thanks for the explanation of how to use explode(). It now makes sense to me and the query almost works

The only problem is that it echoes "Array" instead of the username. It does, however, echo Array according to the number of names, meaning that if there are 3 names, it echoes Array 3 times.

[redemption]

did you explode() twice like i said?

[Defender1]

why don't you store each bit (name, email etc) in a seperate field in the database? that way you can just use mysql_fetch_array() for your query results.

[Dalixam]

Originally posted by Defender1
why don't you store each bit (name, email etc) in a seperate field in the database? that way you can just use mysql_fetch_array() for your query results.

Because the number of users is different for each row.

did you explode() twice like i said?

Yes, I use the exact code as you posted it

[redemption]

oops my bad i had a stoopid error in my code up above... notice the new line

$up_lines = explode(",",$up_lines); 

the fixed code:

$results = mysql_query("SELECT users FROM table");
while ($credits = mysql_fetch_array($results)) {

$up = explode("\n",$credits[users]);  // seperate by newline
foreach $up as $up_lines
{
  $up_lines = explode(",",$up_lines);  // separate by ,

  $up_author = $up_lines[0];
  $up_email = $up_lines[1];
  $up_date = $up_lines[2];

  echo $up_author;
} 

hope this works... sorry about the error

[Dalixam]

Yeah, that did the trick!

You don't need to apologize. I'm just happy you want to help me

Thanks for the help!