I have 2 tables, a users table and a trade table.
Which look like:
The structure of my code right now is:
<?php
$history = mysqli_query($con, "SELECT * FROM .......");
while($row = mysqli_fetch_array($history)) {
echo("The sentence");
} ?>
Problem I'm facing is that I'm trying to echo the user_name which in one case has to be the receiver and other the person giving it.
Pro tip: Never use SELECT * in software unless you know exactly why you are doing so. In your case it is harmful.
I'm assuming your query is really against the user and trade tables you mentioned in your question.
First, recast your query using 21st century SQL, as follows:
SELECT *
FROM trade AS t
JOIN user AS s ON s.user_id = t.user_id_sender
WHERE s.facebook_id = $fbid
Second, use this to retrieve your user's names and the item id traded.
SELECT s.user_name AS sender,
r.user_name AS receiver,
t.trade_id AS item_id
FROM trade AS t
JOIN user AS s ON s.user_id = t.user_id_sender
JOIN user AS r ON r.user_id = t.user_id_receiver
WHERE s.facebook_id = $fbid
See how we JOIN the user table twice, with two different aliases s (for sender) and r (for receiver)? That's the trick to fetching both names from IDs.
See how we employ the aliases sender and receiver to disambiguate the two user_name columns in the result set?
Now, when you use the php fetch_array function, you'll end up with these elements in the array.
$history['sender']
$history['receiver']
$history['item_id']
The array index strings correspond to the alias names you specified in your SELECT clause in your query.
So, one reason to avoid SELECT * is that you can get more than one column with the same name, and that means fetch_array will eliminate those duplicates and so it will lose useful information from your result set.
$understanding++; Thanks!
item_sendtable? You only mentioned theuserandtradetable. And not sure but, is it alright not to use apostrophe (') on your$fbidvariable inside the query? Correct me if I'm wrong.