Can I use a $variable to determine which DB row data is entered?

[Modernvox]

I have scraped data that needs to be dispersed INTO it's appropriate rows.

The problem is the data pertains to specific States & Cities so i am wondering if I can do the following instead of creating hundreds of DB fields:

 

$urls = array();
$insert = array();

if ($st == "AL")  \\if State is Alabama
{
$urls = array("http://auburn.craigslist.org", "http://bham.craigslist.org"); //This will be popular cities in Alabama
$insert= array("auburn", "bham"); // This will need to be Inserted INTO proper DB  row to match city selected above
// SO if user selects auburn listings I need to extract data from $insert('auburn')??
}
else if ($st == "AK") 
{
$urls= array("http://anchorage.craigslist.org");
}
else if ($st == "AZ") 
{
$urls = array("http://anchorage.craigslist.org");
}

foreach ($urls as $url) {
    $html = file_get_contents("$url/muc/");

    preg_match_all('/<a href="([^"]+)">([^<]+)<\/a><font size="-1">([^"]+)<\/font>/s', $html,$posts,PREG_SET_ORDER);
    //echo "<pre>";print_r($posts);


    foreach ($posts as $post) {

$dbx= mysql_connect("", "", "");   
if (!$dbx)
{
die('Could not connect: ' . mysql_error());
}
//print $post[0]; //HTML
        $post[2] = str_ireplace($url,"",$post[2]); //remove domain
        echo "<a href=\"$url{$post[1]}\">{$post[2]}<font size=\"3\">{$post[3]}<br />";
        print "<BR />\n";


    }
}
mysql_SELECT_db("db_name", $dbx);
mysql_Query("INSERT INTO $insert // Need to choose the State
VALUES ("Value1', 'Value2', 'Value3')"); //Need to choose the city

mysql_close($dbx);
?>

 

Essentially what I am trying to accomplish is> avoid having to manually create a field for each city as there are hundreds.  I would like to have the States set up and then just auto add the data INTO appropriate cities.

 

Thank You.

[laffin]

why not just scrape the state/city pages as well?

I notices that state pages all use http://geo.craigslist.org

while cities have their own subdomain.