Set array to re-use data from DB inquiry?

[amites]

Hello,

 

I come to this board looking for some help

 

I have a page which make multiple inquiries to a local mySQL DB, and in my attempt to avoid adding to the number of inquiries I am trying to set an array to a string of data pulled from a inquiry inside of a loop, specifically:

 

               foreach($product_array2 as $num_temp){
                  $num=$num_temp['parent'];
                  $sql = "SELECT categories_name FROM categories_description  WHERE categories_id='$num'";
                  $result = mysql_query($sql);
                  $row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);
                  $cat_name_find=$row['categories_name'];
                  //print $cat_name_find."--<br>";
                  if($cat_name_find==$temp){
                     $ct++;
                  }
               }

 

when I go back to call upon $cat_name I get

 

array(1) { ["categories_id"]=> NULL }

 

as a var-dump...

 

any ideas what I'm doing wrong??

 

I'm not a strong coder my background has been development, design, and marketing

but this time I don't have much choice, any help would be greatly appreciated

 

I can post more of the code if needed

 

Alvin

[Illusion]

try this

$sql = "SELECT categories_name FROM categories_description  WHERE categories_id=".$num;

 

 

[amites]

I suppose I should have been more specific,

 

the above Query is working,

 

the trouble is that query is inside a foreach loop my goal is to save the results from that query into an array which I can call upon later

 

for a better description:

 

the page is located at:

http://www.testequipmentconnection.com/index.php?main_page=manucat&manu=TEKTRONIX

 

the code above generates a side menu of categories with entries that match $manufacturer

my goal is to then use the list used to generate the menu to display a list entries from each category

 

hope i haven't made this more confusing, it will likely make more sense if you look at the page

[amites]

whittled away on this one a bit more today

 

I have it down to a simple question.

 

how do I set an array while inside a forloop

 

specifically:

				$row_cat = mysql_fetch_assoc($result); //all good
			$cat_Number= $row_cat['categories_id']; // set current category ID
//				$cat_id_array[]=('cat_id'=>$cat_Number); // huh?
			var_dump($row_cat);

 

the above gives me:

 

array(4) { ["categories_id"]=>  string(2) "17" ["language_id"]=>  string(1) "1" ["categories_name"]=>  string(14) "Power Supplies" ["categories_description"]=>  string(0) "" }

 

when I uncomment the above line I get:

 

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_DOUBLE_ARROW

for the line with that bit of code

 

I believe everything else is correct, when I set a temporary category for display it displays properly

 

any ideas?