mysql_fetch_assoc goes into infinite loop - php

Question

I am trying to display posts in a specific condition with a while loop but it is giving me a 30 second timeout error. Here's my code:
while ($tagrow = mysql_fetch_assoc(mysql_query("SELECT * FROM posts WHERE tag='$usersearch' ORDER BY id DESC"))) {
$stufftoecho .= $tagrow['text'];
}
There is a timeout error on the line with the while loop, I guess it is an infinite loop but I don't know how to fix it.
NOTE: Please don't tell me I need to use mysqli or PDO, i will convert to one of them later.

Answer 1

Run mysql_query() once out of while loop.
$sql = "SELECT * FROM posts WHERE tag='$usersearch' ORDER BY id DESC";
$result = mysql_query($sql);
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
echo $row['text']; }
mysql_free_result($result);

Answer 2

This of course is going to be an infinite loop, provided at least one element matches the query; I suspect that in your infinite loop, you never progress past the first element returned by the query.
while ($tagrow = mysql_fetch_assoc(mysql_query("SELECT * FROM posts WHERE tag='$usersearch' ORDER BY id DESC"))) {
The function mysql_fetch_assoc is going to take in a result set of a query, and iterate through it, returning the next element in the series each time it is called.
The function mysql_query is going to take a query and return a result set;
They way you have your while loop structured, you will be executing the query, and passing the result set directly into the fetch_assoc, which will inturn assign the value of $tagrow to the first element; and then do it again, and again.
What we need to do instead, is execute the query, and then save the result set. This makes it so you only need to execute the query once, instead of on each iteration, and save the results in memory.
We can do this by simply breaking it into the following two lines, and using a variable as temporary storage of the query results.
$results = mysql_query( "SELECT * FROM posts WHERE tag='$usersearch' ORDER BY id DESC" );
while ( $tagrow = mysql_fetch_assoc( $results ) ) {

Answer 3

I'd suggest you to break it up into chunks.
$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM posts WHERE tag='".$usersearch."' ORDER BY id DESC") or die(mysql_error());
while ($tagrow = mysql_fetch_assoc($query)) {
$stufftoecho .= $tagrow['text'];
}
Hope this helps.
Peace! xD

Answer 4

It seems your running the query every time it goes through the loop. Try this instead,
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM posts WHERE tag='" . $usersearch . "' ORDER BY id DESC"); //execute query
if ($result)
{
while ($tagrow = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
{
$stufftoecho.= $tagrow['text'];
}
}
else
{
echo mysql_error();
}