What does MYSQLI_NUM mean and do?

Question

I just wanted a little bit of information on MYSQLI_NUM. And is it part of PHP or MySQL.

Answer 1

MYSQLI_NUM is a constant in PHP associated with a mysqli_result. If you're using mysqli to retrieve information from the database, MYSQLI_NUM can be used to specify the return format of the data. Specifically, when using the fetch_array function, MYSQLI_NUM specifies that the return array should use numeric keys for the array, instead of creating an associative array. Assuming you have two fields in your database table, "first_field_name" and "second_field_name", with the content "first_field_content" and "second_field_content"...

$result->fetch_array(MYSQLI_NUM);

fetches each row of the result like this:

array(
    0 => "first_field_content",
    1 => "second_field_content"
);

Alternatively...

$result->fetch_array(MYSQLI_ASSOC);

fetches an array like this:

array(
    "first_field_name" => "first_field_content",
    "second_field_name" => "second_field_content"
);

Using the constant MYSQLI_BOTH will fetch both.

Answer 2

It is a PHP constant used in mysqli_fetch_array()

This tells the function that you want it to return a record from your results as a numerically indexed array instead of an associative one (MYSQLI_ASSOC) or both (MYSQLI_BOTH).

Alternatively, you can just use mysqli_fetch_row() to do the same thing.