php not recognizing array

I am trying to loop through a mysql result array with the following
code:

while($count = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
{
$var1=array();
$var1=$count["files"];
$var2=array_slice($var1, 5, -1);
print_r("$var2");
print "<br>";
if(in_array("7194", $var2))
{print "7194 was there in the string so increment counter"; print
"<br>";}
}

For some strange reason php doesnt seem to recognize the result from
mysql_fetch_assoc
as an array and throws the following two error:
Warning: in_array() [function.in-array]: Wrong datatype for second
argument
Warning: array_slice() [function.array-slice]: The first argument
should be an array

is there any syntatic mistake somewhere??
somehow when i just do the foll it prints the array

while($count = mysql_fetch_assoc($result))
{
$var1[]=$count["files"]; // $var1[]
$var2=array_slice($var1, 5, -1);
print_r("$var2");
print "<br>"; }

why is var[] strangely working and var=array() not??

re: php not recognizing array

Message-ID: <1168780957.484575.79920@m58g2000cwm.googlegroups. comfrom
thecoolone contained the following:
$count["files"] is not an array it's an array element.

Therefore $var1 is not an array either.

--
Geoff Berrow (put thecat out to email)
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