Sorting Troubles....

[morrisoner]

I have a small search page which allows the user to search through a database of notes. The search results are listed by category eg

Subject
Topic
Note

I can search the final results (notes) fine, but I can't sort the topic or subject.

I suspect it is because there are multiple dates for each Topic. I have explored things like 'ORDER BY max(notes.$sort)' but I get an sql error.
Due to my newbie nature I do not know the capabilities of the SQL functions.

Any help would be appreciated, or a more efficient method.

Below is the code I am using

$subjectresult = mysql_query($subjectquery) or die(mysql_error());

while (list($subjectID, $subject) = mysql_fetch_row($subjectresult))
{
	SUBJECT NAME HERE

	$topicquery = "SELECT DISTINCT notes.topic" . $query . " AND 			notes.subjectID=$subjectID";

	if ($sort)
	{
		if ($order)
			$topicquery .= " ORDER BY notes.$sort $order";
	}

	$topicresult = mysql_query($topicquery) or die("Error: " . mysql_error());
	while (list($topic) = mysql_fetch_row($topicresult))
	{

		TOPIC NAME HERE

		$notequery = "SELECT notes.*" . $query . " AND notes.topic = 				'$topic'";

		if ($sort)
		{
			if ($order)
				$notequery .= " ORDER BY notes.$sort $order";
		}

		$noteresult = mysql_query($notequery);
		$on = true;

		while ($note = mysql_fetch_array($noteresult))
		{
			NOTE STUFF HERE
		}
	}
}

[barand]

It might be easier to go back to the beginning

What table(s) have you got?
what fields have you got in your table(s)?
what exactly are you trying to achieve at the end?