Posted by Steve on 04/16/07 15:47

"dangerd" <duncanelliot@breathe.com> wrote in message
news:1176737155.703447.58140@n59g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
| Hi folks,
|
| can someone help me understand the meaning behind this snippet of
| code:
|
| $result = mysql_query('SELECT category_id,category_name FROM
| gallery_category');
| while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
| $photo_category_list .= <<<__HTML_END
| <option value="$row[0]">$row[1]</option>\n
| __HTML_END;
| }
|
| I start to get confuse when the .=<<<_HTML_END bit start, how does
| this work? I don't understand.
|
| Thanks

it's called a heredoc. i hate them, but others love them. essentially you
are breaking out of php code so that what is contained inbetween <<<__TAG
and __TAG can be written as if it were literal text. it is much more clear
to me to do:

$photo_category_list .= '<option value="' . $row[0] . '">' .
$row[1] .
"</option>\n";

but that's just me.

btw, wouldn't it make much more sense to make $row be $columns since the key
of the array points to a column/field and not a row of data?

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