Question

I have this section of my PHP script that loops through a recordset and stores the data into variables.

 $sql_result5 = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM turfs WHERE city = '$city'", $db); $query++;
 while ($rs5 = mysql_fetch_array($sql_result5)) { 
    if ($rs5[plot] != "") {
       ${$rs5[plot].'_exist'} = 1; 
       ${'$p_color_'.$rs5[plot]} = $rs5[color]; 
       ${$rs5[plot].'_1'} = $rs5[color1]; 
       }
    }

I then use this data to populate a 20×20 grid, so that loop would be going through 400 records storing data for each, and for each record (box in the grid) there needs to be about 5 or so variables.

Is it a bad idea creating so many variables? Is there a better way to do this? Maybe an array?

Answer 1

Creating variables, as you’ve done, isn’t the best way to do this. Instead, either use an array, or create the grid within the while loop.

Create an Array

$sql_result5 = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM turfs WHERE city = '$city'", $db);
$query++;
while($rs5 = mysql_fetch_array($sql_result5)){
 if($rs5[plot]){
  $plot[$rs5[plot]] = array(
   'color' => $rs5[color],
   'color1' => $rs5[color1],
  );
 }
}

Then…

foreach($plot as $this_plot){
 $color = $this_plot['color'];
 $color1 = $this_plot['color1'];
 // Do something here
}

Or, Create Grid Within while

$sql_result5 = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM turfs WHERE city = '$city'", $db);
$query++;
while($rs5 = mysql_fetch_array($sql_result5)){ 
 if($rs5[plot]){
  $color = $rs5['color'];
  $color1 = $rs5['color1'];
  // Do something here
 }
}