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PHP Integrating PHP with Databases Using Relational Tables Fetching Many Relationships

Josh Foster
Josh Foster
8,896 Points

I can't understand how to create $item["genres"].

I can't understand how to create the internal array $item["genres"]. Do I define it as an empty array before looping through $items, and then assign new "genre_id" and "genre" values each time? I'm utterly confused about this. I have tried a combination of things, including something closely resembling the lesson example: while($row = $results->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)){ $item[$row["genre_id"]][] = $row["genre"]; } but I don't understand how to create a specific "genres" internal array using the above method.

index.php
<?php

include "helper.php";

/*
 * helper contains the following variables:
 * $item is an array that contains details about the library item
 * $results is a PDOstatement object with our genre results.
 */

1 Answer

Hi, Josh Foster, you almost got it right.

As it is said in the description, there is already an $item array. It asks to loop through the $results and add an internal array with the genre_id as key and genre as value. It would be something like this:

$item = [
    "genres" => [
        "genre_id" => "genre"
        ]
    ];

or

$item["genres"] = [
    "genre_id" => "genre"
    ];

or

$item["genres"]["genre_id"] = ["genre"];

The exercise says we already have the "genres" in the item array, so now we need to loop through $results and add the "genre_id" and "genre" to it. You will need a while loop, almost as you tried, but using the last example I gave.

while ($row = $results->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
    $item["genres"][$row["genre_id"]] = $row["genre"];
}