foreach not in reach

Question 1: How can I append strings to my authors array? Me thinks this doesn't work :§) ? $authors .= explode(";", $mydata->KW); I'm getting "Invalid argument supplied for foreach()" Question 2: Once I get this working, I want to (a) alphabetise the contents of the array, (b) count repititions, (c) elimintate copies, and create an array I can print with tow things "$author[i]\t$counter[i]", so I end up with something like: Adam 2 Louis 5 John 3 Mary 8 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ $myconnection = mysql_connect($server,$user,$pass); mysql_select_db($db,$myconnection); $news = mysql_query("select KW from $table"); while ($mydata = mysql_fetch_object($news)) { $authors .= explode(";", $mydata->KW); } foreach ($authors as $author) { echo "$author<br>\n"; } ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I'm learning, slowly but surely Martin :) J