PHP Question

[adulttemps]

I have the following function

function categories () {
    
    
    
    $res = mysql_query('select category from content ORDER BY category');
    while($rows = mysql_fetch_array($res)){
    
        
        $a = array();
        
        foreach ($rows as $row)
        {
        $foo = explode(',', $row);

        $a = array_merge($a, $foo);
        

        echo '<li><a href="/videos/'.$a[0].'" title="'.$a[0].'">'.$a[0].'</a></li>';
                
        }
    }    
    
} 

It selects the categories out fine, but how do i get it to only display unique categories?

This prints each category everytime its listed in the db I cant use select distinct because some categories contain more than one category : example anal, amateur, blowjob

[Ferrishyn]

This should work for ya:

$res = mysql_query('select distinct(category) from content ORDER BY category');

[Ferrishyn]

That's what I get for posting this early in the morning, I didn't read it ;)

You need to separate that out so its not in the same field like that. You could also read through all of them explode them by the commas and unique that array.

[webboy21]

well your problem is bad database design ;) basically what ferrishyn said....his solution will work too....but it's better to start at the source and build up your database the right way

[adulttemps]

Yea the database design is from an affiliate dump, they dump the categories seperated by commas.

[Kaylum]

yo, a quick hack to get your stuff working...

note: that select statement gives the impression that the categories are already stored in the database as one category per row, but i guess not.

function categories () {
    
    
    
    $res = mysql_query('select category from content ORDER BY category');
    while($rows = mysql_fetch_array($res)){
    
        
        $dirty_array = array();
        $clean_array = array();

        foreach ($rows as $row)
        {
        $foo = explode(',', $row);

        $dirty_array = array_merge($dirty_array, $foo);
                 
        }

        // loop through the crappy array
        foreach ($dirty_array as $element)
       {
            // quick hack to bypass duplicates
           if (!in_array($element,$clean_array)
          {
                    // push the category element into array
                    array_push($clean_array,$element); 
                    
                    // quick hack to print out links without re-looping through clean-array
                    echo '<li><a href="/videos/'.$category.'" title="'.$category.'">'.$category.'</a></li>';
          }
       }
    }    
    
} 

[Kaylum]

update:

replace ($category) in the echo statement to ($element) which holds the category.

peace