Question

I am working on a project that requires imploding an array with character separation. I have successfully used join and implode interchangeably in other parts of the project, but I can’t get it to work in this section.

$dbQuery = "SELECT ftc.*, fc.name
            FROM facilities f
            LEFT JOIN facility_to_category ftc ON f.fid = ftc.fid
            LEFT JOIN facility_categories fc ON ftc.cid = fc.cid
            WHERE f.listing_year = '2011'
                AND fc.parent_cid = '2'
              AND f.fid = ('".$listing_fid."')";
    $dbResult = $dbc->query($dbQuery,__FILE__,__LINE__);
    $num_results = $dbc->num_rows($dbResult);
    echo '<h3>Demographics</h3>
    <div>';
    while($catdata = $dbc->fetch($dbResult)) {
        $demographics = array();
        $demographic_names = array('',trim($catdata->name));
        $demographics = implode('  '.chr(149).'   ',$demographic_names);   
        print $demographics; 
    }

The result is this:

Demographics
• Affluent • Children • Hard-to-Reach • Parents

instead of

Demographics
Affluent • Children • Hard-to-Reach • Parents

I’ve tried using double quotes instead of single quotes around ‘.chr(149).’. I’ve tried using commas or bars or just spaces. I’ve tried different ways of trimming and not trimming $catdata->name.

I also thought about trying string concatenation, but then I’ll end up with an extra character at the end instead of the beginning. Implode or join seem the better way to go.

What am I missing?

Answer 1

Thank you, everyone, for your help! I ended up reformatting the query and array. Here is the final code:

$dbQuery = "SELECT ftc.*, fc.name
            FROM facilities f
            LEFT JOIN facility_to_category ftc ON f.fid = ftc.fid
            LEFT JOIN facility_categories fc ON ftc.cid = fc.cid
            WHERE f.listing_year = '2011'
                AND fc.parent_cid = '2'
              AND f.fid = ('".$listing_fid."')";
    $dbResult = $dbc->query($dbQuery,__FILE__,__LINE__);
    $num_results = $dbc->num_rows($dbResult);
    echo '<h3>Demographics</h3>
    <div>';
    while($catdata = $dbc->fetch($dbResult)) {
        $demographics = array();
        if (is_array($demographics)) {
        $demographic_names[] = trim($catdata->name);
        }
    }
    $demographics = join('  '.chr(149).'   ',$demographic_names);           
    print $demographics; 

The result is:

Demographics
Affluent • Children • Hard-to-Reach • Parents

Hopefully this will be helpful to someone else!