title: Storing Data into PHP Array
body: <p>total_starsHere is the code, it is the best explanation of what I am <em>trying</em> to do:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$total_stars = array();
  $query = "SELECT items_id FROM items";
  $result = mysql_query($query);
  
  while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
      $item_id = $row['items_id'];
      $sql = "Select Count(item_id) FROM ratings WHERE item_id = '{$item_id}'";
      $result = mysql_query($sql);
      $total_stars[] = mysql_fetch_array($result);
  }
  
  //  To see the output by entering the URL I want to print_r  
  print_r($total_stars);
  
  // In the end, I am trying to JSON encode this and will later output in Java for Android
  print(json_encode($total_stars));
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>(So as not to confuse, the items_id is in items table, item_id (without an 's') is in ratings table)</p>
  
  <p>Now in plain English:</p>
  
  <p>I am looping through each row in the items table.  As I do that, in each loop I am referring to another table called "Ratings", and getting a count of how many ratings for that item.</p>
  
  <p>For example I want an array to look like (65, 43, 55, 43, etc).  Sample numbers of course.  But each represent the total amount of ratings for each item in a table.  How can I get print__r to display the results of the SQL statement inside the loop?</p>
  
  <p>UPDATED CODE TRYING TO USE JOIN:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$query = "SELECT items_id FROM items";
  
  $q = 'SELECT 
      items.items_id, 
      COUNT(ratings.item_id) AS rate 
      FROM `items`
      LEFT JOIN ratings ON (ratings.item_id = items.items_id)
      GROUP BY items_id';
  $result = mysql_query($q);
  
  while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result)) {
  
      $total_stars = mysql_fetch_array($result);
  
  }
  
  print_r($total_stars);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>print_r outputs this:
       Array ( [0] => 783 [items_id] => 783 [1] => 0 [rate] => 0 )</p>