Question

I am trying to retrieve tags that are associated with a society. The code below works, but it is only retrieving the first tag and not the rest in the table.

$user = $_SESSION['user'];
$society = $_SESSION['society'];

$soc_q = mysql_query("SELECT socID, creator, socName, type, datetime
     FROM societies.society WHERE socName = '$society'");
$soc_row = mysql_fetch_array($soc_q, MYSQL_ASSOC);


$tag_q = mysql_query("SELECT society.socID, tagID, name
     FROM societies.society
     INNER JOIN societies.tags ON society.socID = tags.socID
     WHERE society.socID = '$soc_row[socID]'");
$tag_row = mysql_fetch_array($tag_q, MYSQL_ASSOC);

$the_tags = $tag_row['name'];

if (!@$_SESSION['existing_tags']) {
    $_SESSION['existing_tags'] = $the_tags;
}

$existing_tags = $_SESSION['existing_tags'];
$tags = explode(' ', $the_tags);

// ajax
if (isset($_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH']) && @$_GET['tag']) {
    $match = array();
    foreach ($tags as $tag) {
        if (stripos($tag, $_GET['tag']) === 0) {
            $match[] = $tag;
        }
    }

    echo json_encode($match);

    exit;

Answer 1

You have to load tags in loop like this (get each row):

$the_tags = array();
while( $tag_row = mysql_fetch_assoc( $tag_q)){
    $the_tags[] = $tag_row['name'];
}

Edit: using GROUP BY

If you are willing to play with mySQL and element grouping you may use GROUP_CONCAT (if you need only tag names):

$tag_q = mysql_query("
     SELECT GROUP_CONCAT( DISTINCT tags.name SEPARATOR ', ') as `tags`
     FROM societies.society
     INNER JOIN societies.tags ON society.socID = tags.socID
     WHERE society.socID = '$soc_row[socID]'
     GROUP BY NULL");
$tag_row = mysql_fetch_array($tag_q, MYSQL_ASSOC);
$tag_names = explode( ', ', $tag_row['tags']);

The code above isn’t that useful, but when you’ll combine it with your first query, you’ll get:

$soc_q = mysql_query("SELECT socID, creator, socName, type, datetime,
     GROUP_CONCAT( DISTINCT tags.name SEPARATOR ', ') as `tags`
     FROM society
     LEFT JOIN societies On societies.socID = society.socID
     LEFT JOIN tags ON societies.tagsID = tags.socID
     WHERE socName = '$society'
     GROUP_BY society.id");
$soc_row = mysql_fetch_array($soc_q, MYSQL_ASSOC);

_{Note: prefixing tables with database names makes your code hard to read because once you’re doing that, other time not.}