Can I loop a sql query???

Question

Hi,
I have an array that has x number of values. I want to run a
sql statement x number of times using the next array value each
time.
Basically I have a recordset that displays results based on a
search. The result of the search is a list of names, the trouble is
for reasons beyond my control the names are in a single db field as
"FirstLast". I want to take this value and match it up to another
table that has the first and last names in separate fields. So far
I have extracted the results from the first recordset using a while
loop, the resulting array is called $name_search :
mysql_select_db($database_nancy, $nancy);
$query_search = "SELECT artist FROM images WHERE caption LIKE
'%$keyword%' OR piece_name LIKE '%$keyword%' OR show_title LIKE
'%$keyword%' GROUP BY artist";
$search = mysql_query($query_search, $nancy) or
die(mysql_error());
$totalRows_search = mysql_num_rows($search);
$name_search = array();
while(list($artist) = mysql_fetch_row($search)) {
$name_search[] = $artist;
I now want to take the values of the $name_search array and
run a SELECT statement on table2 for each value and display the
results. Could a foreach loop handle that ? Using php/mysql

Answer 1

well, I´ve been thinking about that, and the only idea I
had was using a subquery for this, like:
<?php
$query_subsearch="SELECT CONCAT(firstname, ' ', lastname) AS
fullname FROM other_table WHERE lastname LIKE
'".%$search['artist']%."'";
$subsearch = mysql_query($query_subsearch, $nancy) or
die(mysql_error());
$row_subsearch = mysql_fetch_assoc($search);
$totalRows_subsearch = mysql_num_rows($subsearch);
?>
<?php do { ?>
- <?php echo $row_subsearch['fullname']; ?>
<br>
<?php } while ($row_subsearch =
mysql_fetch_assoc($subsearch)); ?>
<?php
mysql_free_result($subsearch);
?>
This example might or might not work, but introducing
subqueries as such is possible -- there might be other options
which don´t require matching against another table at all, but
please let me know, if...
1. you need that for displaying purposes alone ?
2. the "format" of the names is always identical both in the
artist field
(e.g. JohnDoe) and the other table
(John Doe) -- in particular: will the "last name" always
start with an uppercase letter ?
If yes, I´ve been thinking about applying a case
sensitive regular expression on the "artist" field alone which
will...
a) detect the last lower case letter that´s preceeding
the following Upper case letter and capture each element into a
backreference
(see the $pattern variable), and
b) add a hardcoded space in between those backreferences
(see the $replacement variable).
If this approach should match the 2nd. "last name always
starts with an Upper Case letter" requirement, give it a try using
the following example
<?php
$test = "JohnDoe";
$pattern = '/([a-z])([A-Z])/';
$replacement = '${1} ${2}';
$test = preg_replace($pattern,$replacement,$test);
?>
<?php
echo $test;
?>
if not, I actually don´t have any other idea at the
moment ;-)