Reading only one column from SQL output as a numerical array in PHP

I run the following query:

  SELECT tagID, 
         COUNT(*) AS TotalOccurrences
    FROM coupon_tags
GROUP BY tagID
ORDER BY TotalOccurrences DESC 
   LIMIT 10

It returns output like this:

tagID  TotalOccurrences 
------------------------
7      9
2      8
1      3
6      2
3      1
4      1
5      1
8      1

I can'开发者_JAVA百科t do a mysql_fetch_array(mysql_query($thatQuery); because it has two columns of data and any array pulled looks like garbage. How can I further streamline that query to a single column of still-sorted data, so it's easier to work with in an array? Or maybe I am using the wrong PHP/MySQL function (although I looked through them all)?

Edit: I've found out that the query will work fine in phpMyAdmin but it fails when I try to query with mysql_query().

My php code:

$tagSQL = mysql_query($selectorSQL);
        if (!$tagSQL) die("query failed");  //fails here
            while ($tSrow = mysql_fetch_assoc($tagSQL)) {
                var_dump($tSrow);
            }

You can do it like this to "streamline that query to a single column of still-sorted data".

SELECT tagID            
FROM coupon_tags
GROUP BY tagID
ORDER BY COUNT(tagID) DESC 
LIMIT 10

Just make sure to use count on a single column instead of counting everything, this will greatly affect performance.

Don't try and do everything in one line. Makes it hard to debug.

$sql = "SELECT ...";
$result = mysql_query($sql);
if (!$result) die("query failed");
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
  var_dump($row);
}