How to get multiple results from SQL query - php

Question

I have this function:
function findAllmessageSender(){
$all_from = mysql_query("SELECT DISTINCT `from_id` FROM chat");
$names = array();
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($all_from)) {
$names[] = $row[0];
}
return($names);
}
that returns all the ID of my users in a private messaging system. Then I want to get the all the messages where the user_id is equal to the user logged in and from_id is equal to all from_id I got from the previous function:
function fetchAllMessages($user_id){
$from_id = array();
$from_id = findAllmessageSender();
$data = '\'' . implode('\', \'', $from_id) . '\'';
//if I echo out $ data I get these numbers '113', '141', '109', '111' and that's what I want
$q=array();
$q = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM chat WHERE `to_id` = '$user_id' AND `from_id` IN($data)") or die(mysql_error());
$try = mysql_fetch_assoc($q);
print_r($try);
}
print_r return only 1 result:
Array (
[id] => 3505
[from_id] => 111
[to_id] => 109
[message] => how are you?
[sent] => 1343109753
[recd] => 1
[system_message] => no
)
But there should be 4 messages.

Answer 1

You have to call mysql_fetch_assoc() for each row that is returned. If you just call mysql_fetch_assoc() once then its only going to return the first row.
Try something like this:
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM chat WHERE `to_id` = '$user_id' AND `from_id` IN($data)") or die(mysql_error());
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
print_r($row);
}

Answer 2

'mysql_fetch_assoc' returns an associative array that corresponds to the fetched row and moves the internal data pointer ahead.
You need to iterate array like:
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($q)) {
echo $row["message"];
}