MySQL SELECT database entries with the same column value

Question

I have the fallowing database table 'table_name':

+----+---------+--------------+
| ID | user_id | meta_key1    |
+----+---------+--------------+
|  1 |       1 |    d         |
|  2 |       1 |    f         |
|  3 |       1 |    c         | 
|  4 |       2 |    g         | 
|  5 |       3 |    1         |
|  6 |       3 |    2         |
|  7 |       4 |    4         | 
|  8 |       4 |    5         | 
|  9 |       4 |    5         |
| 10 |       4 |    5         |
+----+---------+--------------+

I would like to select * from all entries where the user_id = '1'.

The code I'm using now returns only the first value:

$query = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE user_id='1'");
$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query);

while($row){
    return $row["meta_key1"];
}

The result is always the first entry from the table_name where the user_id='(given_id)':

d

While I'd like this result:

d
f
c

Answer 1

You need to continually fetch a row in the loop to get every row in the result, similar to this:

while( $row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query)){
    echo $row["meta_key1"];
}

Since you were doing return $row['meta_key1'] , as soon as the first row was fetched, the function returned with one value. So, if you're using this in a function, you'll need to build an array to get all of the values:

$return = array();
while( $row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query)){
    $return[] = $row["meta_key1"];
}
return $return;

Answer 2

Change your code to :

while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query);){
    echo $row["meta_key1"];
}

Currently, you only call mysql_fetch_assoc one time. You need to call it every time you need the next row.