don't know what to call this

[scottd]

I don't know what to call this so I can't even think of what to search for on the forum.

I want to show links from my db query like this:

A B C D E F G H I J etc...

Where each letter is a link that queries the db again looking for records that begin with that letter...

like:

$sql=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM $table");
while($row=mysql_fetch_array($sql))
{
$letter = substr($row[title],0,1);
//some kind of if statement in here
}

or:

$sql=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM $table WHERE title LIKE '%A' LIMIT 1");

etc...

rgds,
Scott d~

[scottd]

never mind I'm on to it...

Scott d~

[frog_]

I'm interested in seeing how you chose to implement it, if you don't mind sharing.

[scottd]

well I'm not too happy with the way I did it cos the db gets queried 26 times in the process....but I was in a real hurry to do it.

$var[0] = "a";
$var[1] = "b";
$var[2] = "c";
etc...
$var[25] = "z";
$x=0;

while($x<25){
$sql=mysql_query("SELECT * FROM $table WHERE title LIKE '$var[$x]%' LIMIT 1");
while($row=mysql_fetch_aray($sql))
{
$title = substr($row[title],0,1);
print ("<a href=\"#\">$title</a> ");
$x++;
}
}

It isn't ideal because if a letter isn't found then it won't be displayed...whereas the real way would be to display the letter but not have it as a link.

surely the better way is to query the db only once and then have some function that sifts through each record and displays each letter only once.....? But I was in a real hurry.

cheers,
Scott D~