Storing multiple rows from MySQL in separate variables - php

Question

I am writing a web application in PHP which will store employee data and generate employee ID cards to PDF. I am using FPDF for creation of PDFs and that works fine. I am having a problem with showing results from MySQL database.
I have to generate PDF with 4 employee ID cards and I am not sure how to get them from the database. So far I am using LIMIT option in the query to get only 4 results and i will have an if statement based on mysql.php?id=1 id which will define the limit. It is a little messy but there are not going to be more than 80 employees.
This is my code:
$id = $_GET['id'];
if ($id == 1) {
$limit_start = 0;
$limit_end = 4;
}
$result=mysql_query("SELECT users.tajemnik, users.dateCreated, users.showmeID,
users.workerName, users.dateCreated, users.workerPlace, users.workerSID, uploads.userID, uploads.data, uploads.filetype
FROM users INNER JOIN uploads ON users.showmeID = uploads.userID ORDER BY workerName DESC LIMIT $limit_start, $limit_end") or die (mysql_error());
mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8'") or die('Spojení se nezdařilo');
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)){
$workerName = $row["workerName"];
$workerPlace = $row["workerPlace"];
$workerSID = $row["workerSID"];
$tajemnik = $row["tajemnik"];
$showmeID = $row["showmeID"];
$mysqldatetime = strtotime($row['dateCreated']);
$image = $row["data"];
$phpdatetime = date("d.m.Y",$mysqldatetime);
}
This will get me the first result from the query. I need to get information from all 4 rows and have them stored in variables like $workerName1, $workerName2 etc. I hope it makes sense what I am trying to do.
Thank you for your replies!
V.

Answer 1

I need to get variables like $workerName1, $workerName2 etc
Nope, you don't.
You actually need an array.
So, first, get yourself a function
function sqlArr($sql){
$ret = array();
$res = mysql_query($sql) or trigger_error(mysql_error()." ".$sql);
if ($res) {
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($res)){
$ret[] = $row;
}
}
return $ret;
}
then write a code
mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8'") or die('Spojení se nezdařilo');
$sql = "SELECT users.tajemnik, users.dateCreated, users.showmeID, users.workerName,
users.dateCreated, users.workerPlace, users.workerSID, uploads.userID,
uploads.data, uploads.filetype
FROM users
INNER JOIN uploads ON users.showmeID = uploads.userID
ORDER BY workerName DESC LIMIT $limit_start, $limit_end";
$data = sqlArr($sql);
Now you have all your data in the $data array.
So, you can loop over it or access single values like
echo $data[0]['tajemnik'];
or
foreach($data as $row) {
//do whatever you want with database row
echo $row['tajemnik'];
}