title: ouputing an array from MySQL db...how to remove square brackets and double quotes in PHP?
body: <p>I am trying to retrieve an array from a mySQL db and print the output to the screen.</p>
  
  <p>The array is encoded prior to writing to the db with the following:</p>
  
  <p><code>$itemsarray = json_encode($items);</code></p>
  
  <p>It is then INSERTed into the db with the following query:</p>
  
  <p><code>mysqli_query($con, "INSERT INTO pages (email, date, items, title, url, expiry) VALUES ('$email', '$timestamp', '$itemsarray', '$title', '$new_url', '$expiry')")</code></p>
  
  <p>When I retrieve the value for $itemsarray onto the screen, the output appears like this:  <code>["forks","knives","spoons","plates","cups","mugs","napkins"]</code>.</p>
  
  <p>I'm familiar with PHP and relatively new to actually writing any MySQL queries so it took me a while to just get it written and returned, so please be easy on me here. :)  </p>
  
  <p>Do I need to write a function of some sort that strips out the " " and [ ], or do I need some further arguments within my JSON function?</p>