Gathering data from DB result array by certain column

Dear all.

I have faced with necessity to get the data from result array by certain column without using associative array.

For example, I want to get first column (id) from table which contains 10 rows with several columns.
If I use the clause $this->db->select('id'), I will get the result array, which contains 10 internal arrays filled column named 'id'.

I just want the function that returns me the non-associative array filled with data by field I signed for the situation I've described above.

I have already written the function I want. It's here:

PHP Code:

public function row_array_by_field($field = "")
        {
        $result = $this->result_array();
        
        if(count($result) === 0)
        {
            return array();
        }
                
        $formatted_result = array();
        
        $fields = array_keys($result[0]);
        
        if(empty($field))
        {
            $field = $fields[0];
        }
        else
        {
            if(!in_array($field, $fields))
            {
                return array();
            }
        }
        
        foreach($result as $row_result)
        {
            array_push($formatted_result, $row_result[$field]);
        }
        
        return $formatted_result;
    } 


I want the developers to put the function in the official CodeIgniter distribution, because some situations requires to get data in that way.