PHP script takes forever to load...

Question

I have similar scripts to this running perfectly well. When i take out the while loop it runs fine (evidently) but everytime i try to get something out of the db it takes forever and then mozilla gives me a download box. I am totally flummoxed so any help would be much appreciated:

include("conn.php");
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM table");

while($row = mysql_num_rows($result));
{
 echo $row['name'];
}

Answer 1

uh oh..

include("conn.php");
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM table");

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

edit:

umm.. since this is clearly a matter of syntax error, there is really not much to explain..

1. a while ended with ; is never a good thing :-s
2. use mysql_fetch_* (assoc, row, array) for fetching (taking) records from the database
3. use $total_rows = mysql_num_rows($result); to get the number of rows affected/returned from your query.

lastly, learning by making mistakes is by no means idiot :)

Answer 2

That's pretty much an infinte loop you've got there, I'd guess what you meant to do was:

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
        echo $row['name'];
}

So, fetch_array instead of num_rows which will return the same number over and over again.

Answer 3

If you look at the reference docs for mysql_num_rows you'll see that it returns the number of rows in the result set from your query. It doesn't change each time you call it, and so your while-loop doesn't terminate.

What you want is something like:

$n = mysql_num_rows($result);
while ( $n > 0 ) {
    // ...
    --$n;
}

You can also use mysql_fetch_array or mysql_fetch_assoc

Answer 4

Thanks guys. I am apparently an idiot!

Answer 5

everytime i try to get something out of the db it takes forever

Also, if in your original query you are selecting everything from table (*), consider selecting only the fields you need, it should work faster.