hi, i am currently scouring the web for a solution to this but thought i would try here as well .. i have a text field in a mysql database the textfield contains an array written out as //-------------------- $array[0][1]="one"; $array[0][2]="two"; $array[0][3]="thre"; $array[1][1]="four"; $array[2][1]="five"; //-------------------- now i need to extract this from the db .. simple and use it as an array for a function .. not as simple as i thought it would be ie $newarray =mysqlquery('etc','etc','etc') and $newarray should be $newarray[0][1]="one"; $newarray[0][2]="two"; $newarray[0][3]="thre"; $newarray[1][1]="four"; $newarray[2][1]="five"; elp? cheers brendan -- PHP Database Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To contact the list administrators, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]