[thelist] help w/design of SQL query

Jason Bauer jbauer at chimesnet.com
Fri Nov 15 10:14:01 CST 2002


> > what you want to do is sequence your results by category, and
> > within
> > category by item
> >
> >      order by category, item
> >
> > then, when you are processing the result set, you have to detect a
> > category
> > "break" from one row to the next, and do the "new category" logic,
> > which in your case means printing out the category name

> Yep it makes sense, I just can't get my brain to translate it to sql
> and then php! Looks like I have to hit the books on SQL again, its
> been too long..thanks.

Here is the data you'll get from the properly ordered query:

ITEM                       CATEGORY
Cheeseburger               Lunch
Hamburger                  Lunch
Hot Dog                    Lunch
French Fries               Side Order

Here is the Psuedocode to display it:

$prev_cat = "";
Loop through each result
  if this row's category != $prev_cat
      print "<h2>$category:</h2>";
  end if

  print "$item<br />";

  $prev_cat = $category;

End Loop

---
Jason Bauer
jbauer at chimesnet.com
Programmer/Analyst
Chimes, Inc.






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