php create array with my sqli query and not array of objects - php

Question

I'm trying to make an array with the result of a mysql query but instead I'm making an array of objects.
Have unsuccessfully tried to convert the array of objects into an array, is that the best approach?
echo json_decode(json_encode($iconsArray), true); // didnt work
This is my query
function listIcons(){
global $link;
$queryAssets = "SELECT DISTINCT icon_1,icon_2,icon_3,icon_4 FROM icons";
$resultqueryAssets = mysqli_query($link, $queryAssets) or
die(mysqli_error($link));
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($resultqueryAssets)) {
$iconsArray[] = $row;
}
$allIcons = json_encode($iconsArray);
echo $allIcons;
return array($allIcons);
}
allIcons outout is
$allIcons = [
0:{icon_1: "01_a", icon_2: "01_b", icon_3: "01_c", icon_4: "01_d"}
1{icon_1: "02_a", icon_2: "02_b", icon_3: "02_c", icon_4: "02_d"}
]
And the output that I need but cant achieve
$allIcons = [
0:"01_a"
1:"02_a"
2:"01_b"
3:"02_b"
4:"03_a"
5:"02_b"
...
]

Answer 1

Most likely this is the easiest thing to do:
<?php
// ....
$queryAssets = "SELECT DISTINCT icon_1,icon_2,icon_3,icon_4 FROM icons";
$resultqueryAssets = mysqli_query($link, $queryAssets) or
die(mysqli_error($link));
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($resultqueryAssets)) {
foreach ($row as $icon) {
$icons[] = $icon;
}
}
var_dump($icons);
An alternative without an additional loop would be such thing:
<?php
// ....
$queryAssets = "SELECT DISTINCT icon_1,icon_2,icon_3,icon_4 FROM icons";
$resultqueryAssets = mysqli_query($link, $queryAssets) or
die(mysqli_error($link));
$icons = [];
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($resultqueryAssets)) {
$icons = array_merge($icons, array_values($row));
}
var_dump($icons);
Actually things get easier if you don't fetch an associative array at all:
<?php
// ....
$queryAssets = "SELECT DISTINCT icon_1,icon_2,icon_3,icon_4 FROM icons";
$resultqueryAssets = mysqli_query($link, $queryAssets) or
die(mysqli_error($link));
$icons = [];
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_row($resultqueryAssets)) {
$icons = array_merge($icons, $row);
}
var_dump($icons);
I did not run these code snippets, just typed them down. I hope there is no silly typo in them...