Output mysql_fetch_array without putting it into a variable

Question

The conventional way of doing this would be

$row = mysql_fetch_array($query);
echo $row['column'];

but I would like to know if it is possible to do something like

echo mysql_fetch_array($query)['column'];

I tried doing this on my local installation, but I get this error:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '[', expecting ',' or ';' in C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP\www\array.php on line 5

This is mainly to reduce the number of lines in my code, as I'm writing a function that places a lot of mysql results into variables, and I don't want to have code that looks like

$row = ...
$this->data[] = $row[];
$row = ...
$this->data[] = $row[];
...and so on

That syntax function()['arraykey'] is called array dereferencing, and it is possible in the newly released PHP 5.4, but not in earlier versions. — Michael Berkowski
– Michael Berkowski, Commented Mar 31, 2012 at 23:21
Just looked that up, thanks. My easyphp installation is running 5.3.9 :S — Jared
– Jared, Commented Mar 31, 2012 at 23:23
Reducing number of lines does not always equal improved code. You also need to consider the readability of the code. — cmbuckley
– cmbuckley, Commented Mar 31, 2012 at 23:23

ThiefMaster · Accepted Answer · 2012-03-31 23:22:22Z

4

You can use mysql_fetch_object() instead:

echo mysql_fetch_object($query)->column;

You can also use mysql_result() to retrieve a single field from the resultset:

echo mysql_result($query, 0, 'column');

Both cases are highly inappropriate though if you want to access more than a single column per row..

answered Mar 31, 2012 at 23:22

ThiefMaster

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1 Comment

ThiefMaster Over a year ago

Well since he's not using it in a loop he probably has only one row anyway. When looping not assigning the row to a variable would just result in very ugly code...

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