Fetching All MySQL Results into an Array

Problem:

In PHP, it's important to retrieve all selected MySQL rows into an array for comprehensive data handling. However, the commonly used mysql_fetch_array function only retrieves one record at a time.

Solution:

To fetch all selected rows into an array, we can utilize a looping mechanism combined with the mysql_fetch_assoc function:

$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM $tableName");

$json = array();
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
     $json[] = $row;
}

echo json_encode($json);

This while loop iterates through the result set, extracting each row into an associative array and adding it to the $json array. Finally, we encode the $json array as JSON for convenient processing.

Alternative with MySQLi:

For enhanced performance and security, consider using MySQLi or MySQL PDO. With MySQLi, the following code achieves the same result:

$query = "SELECT * FROM table";
$result = mysqli_query($db, $query);

$json = mysqli_fetch_all ($result, MYSQLI_ASSOC);
echo json_encode($json );

By leveraging the mysqli_fetch_all function, we directly retrieve all rows into an associative array, simplifying the process even further.