newbie question : combining 2 fields

[alexvgtb]

Hello,

This is a very stupid problem but I'm new at this :-)


Let's say I have two different fields in the same table :

Author1 and Author2

I want a sorted list of those two fields combined.

but if a same term exists both in Author1 and Author2, it should appear only once in the list of course.

What would be the MYSQL query to get this?
Also, what would be the php code?

Thanks in advance!

Alex

[Joan Garnet]

Use a normal query and an if

Code: Select all

while ($row=Mysql_fetch_array($result)){
    if ($row["Author1"] != $row["Author2"]){
       echo $row["Author1"]."<br>";
       echo $row["Author2"]."<p>";
    }
}

Is this what you meant??

[alexvgtb]

Thanks Joan!

But will I get a sorted list with this?

For example :

Let's say I have 3 fields in my database :

Id - Author1 - Author2

and 5 rows :

1 John Tom
2 Marc John
3 Marc (blank)
4 Kelly Sandra
5 Kelly (blank)

I would like to get a sorted list like this :

John
Kelly
Marc
Sandra
Tom

See? A mix of Author1 and Author2 but no duplicate.

Thanks in advance.

[Joan Garnet]

ok, use this -->

Code: Select all

while ($row=Mysql_fetch_array($result)){
   if (!array_key_exists($row["Author1"], $names) or !array_key_exists($row["Author2"], $names)) {
      $names[] = $row["Author1"];
      $names[] = $row["Author2"];     
   }
}

sort ($names,SORT_STRING);
print_r ($names);

bye!

[alexvgtb]

Thank you I'll try it!