strange result of mysql_fetch_array()

[andersthorborg]

I have been working on a CMS for a while using php and a mysql database and it has been working like a charm. Today i ran in to this strange issue:

 

I just implemented an image-album-table in the DB. This table has - amongst others - an "album_cover" field to store the ID of the currently selected image to be on the album cover. After fetching each row i wanted to retrieve the value using $row['album_id'], but I kept getting an error because the image with the ID did not exist (which I knew it did). To my surprise a print_r of 3 different $row-objects looks like this:

 

Array

(

    [0] => 1

    [id] => 1

    [1] => Test album

    [title] => Test album

    [2] =>

    [description] =>

    [3] => 97

    [album_cover] => 1

)

Array

(

    [0] => 2

    [id] => 2

    [1] => Test album  2

    [title] => Test album  2

    [2] => asdasd

    [description] => asdasd

    [3] => 95

    [album_cover] => 1

)

Array

(

    [0] => 3

    [id] => 3

    [1] => Another album

    [title] => Another album

    [2] => asdasd

    [description] => asdasd

    [3] => 98

    [album_cover] => 1

)

 

As expected for each field in the DB there is a numeric index and a key containing the same value. But as you can see for the album_cover, the numeric index and the key contains different values! How is this even possible?

 

For now I have fixed this by just using $row[3] instead of $row['album_cover'], but I am quite puzzled about how this is possible.

 

Any enlightment would be greatly appreciated.

 

All the best.

[fenway]

Sorry, I don't follow.

[andersthorborg]

Ok - thanks for letting me know.

 

This is a print_r of the result of mysql_fetch_array():

 

Array

( 

=> 1

[id] => 1

    [1] => Test album

    [title] => Test album

    [2] =>

    [description] =>

    [3] => 97

    [album_cover] => 1

)

 

In short my problem is that in the about mentioned array - the value of $row['album_cover'] is 1 and the value of $row[3] is 97.

 

They should both be 97 according to the database (as they represent the same field in the database). This is the only case in my entire application where using $row['key'] results in a wrong value.

 

As mentioned for now I can work around it just by using the index instead of the key, but it sucks if eventually I want to add more fields to the table in the database, and I am just curious for any explanation for this strange behavior.

 

I hope this was a bit more clear.

 

Thanks!

[mikosiko]

without see the code that is populating the array (and ideally the row's data) is really difficult to give you an answer

[jdavidbakr]

You don't happen to have an 'if($row['album_cover'] = 1)' statement between your fetch and your dump, do you?

[DavidAM]

It's possible you left out a comma in the SELECT statement:

 

SELECT id, title album_cover FROM ...

 

this select will put the data from the column named title into a field named album_cover.

 

However, without seeing some code, we can't really tell you what the problem is.