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Possible Duplicate:
mysql_fetch_array, mysql_fetch_assoc, mysql_fetch_object

I want a function which can return fields in the current row of a resultset into an associative array and moves the result pointer to the next row.

Confused between 

mysql_fetch_row()
mysql_fetch_assoc()
mysql_fetch_array()

Which one should I use? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

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  • 5
    Why not read the documentation on php.net? Commented Jul 14, 2012 at 1:07
  • Why you don't search first? stackoverflow.com/questions/1536813/… Commented Jul 14, 2012 at 1:19
  • There's also mysql_fetch_object, which naturally returns the row as an object, not an array. Commented Sep 28, 2017 at 17:30

3 Answers 3

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Note: The use of the mysql_* functions are considered deprecated and you should instead use something that offers better security and more functionality, such as MySQLi or PDO.

What is it?

You are looking for mysql_fetch_assoc, as the name implies it will return an associative array (with the column names as keys and the values as the row values).

What will the different functions return?

All of the mentioned functions will return an array, the differences between them is what values that are being used as keys in the returned object.

  • mysql_fetch_row

    This function will return a row where the values will come in the order as they are defined in the SQL query, and the keys will span from 0 to one less than the number of columns selected.

  • mysql_fetch_assoc

    This function will return a row as an associative array where the column names will be the keys storing corresponding value.

  • mysql_fetch_array

    This function will actually return an array with both the contents of mysql_fetch_rowand mysql_fetch_assoc merged into one. It will both have numeric and string keys which will let you access your data in whatever way you'd find easiest.

    It is recommended to use either _assoc or _row though.

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3 Comments

Note, all of these functions have nearly-identically-named counterparts in the mysqli API. So you won't be losing anything or have much to relearn much if you switch.
According to the PHP site, both mysql_fetch_array and mysql_fetch_assoc will be deprecated, I don't know wether to laugh or cry.
As mentioned at the beginning of the answer, the mysql_* functions are officially deprecated. Using MySQLi, the counterparts for these functions are mysqli_fetch_row, mysqli_fetch_assoc, and mysqli_fetch_array, respectively.
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mysql_fetch_assoc when you are manually referring to the fields.

mysql_fetch_row when you are using it as part of a list($a,$b,$c...) = ...

Never mysql_fetch_array.

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2 Comments

This would be a more helpful answer if you mentioned why you would never use mysql_fetch_array (e.g., the performance impact, mixing associative and non-associative arrays, etc).
I would like to add that one should simply use fetch_assoc(), exclusively. A good code is a descriptive code. Using fetch_row will result in ['Daniel', 'Wu'], it is really not informative, and will be quite confusing when the content is not as apparent as my example. While using fetch_assoc will get you ['first_name' => 'Daniel', 'last_name' => 'Wu'], which makes your data pretty clear.
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mysql_fetch_assoc()

Say your table has two columns id and name. You can use the following snippet -

while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    echo $row["id"];
    echo $row["name"];
}
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