quicksorting a list

kenjiman

Hey there....

Im trying to create a pulldown menu with a heirarchial list of categories.

I found a cool script in this article article

the script looks as following...

  

id          INT
parent_id   INT
name        INT

$result = somedb_query("SELECT id, parent_id, name FROM mytable ORDER BY name");

while( $row = somedb_fetch_object($result) )  {
  $tmpAry[$row->parent_id][$row->id] = $row->name;
}

sortCategories($tmpAry, $ary, 0, "");

function sortCategories(&$inAry, &$outAry, $level, $indent)  {
  if( is_array($inAry[$level]) )  {
    while( list($id, $name) = each($inAry[$level]) ) {
      $outAry[$id] = "$indent $name";                 

       sortCategories($inAry, $outAry, $id, "$indent $name -- ");
    }
  }
}

when I run it I get an error trying to fetch an object from the result row... I dont understand the fetch_object function =\ ... can I use
mysql_fetch_object($result)

if $result is an array?

I tried modefying the

while( $row = somedb_fetch_object($result) )  {
  $tmpAry[$row->parent_id][$row->id] = $row->name;
}

to a simple for statement

for($m = 0; $m < sizeof($tmpAry);$m++)  {
	$row = $tmpAry[$m];
	$tmpAry[$row['parent_id']][$row['id']] = $row['name'];
}

so I wont get the error... but I suspect that this is not a correct $tmpAry....

anyone have another script that I could use... or even better... help me with this one....

thx a bunch

Kenji

drawmack

why are you sorting the results of a query to begin with?

just use the order by to sort the result for you, it's much easier.

kenjiman

Im not quite sure I understand what you mean... I am sorting the first result with the "order by name" statement in the SQL...

these are not ordered so that I can put them in a dropdown box... which I want to do so it looks like following...

product
-tv
-panasonic
-sony
-radio
-hitachi
-small radios
-fujitsu

So I have to sort them in some sort of hierarchal list....

Am I making any sense or am I thinking totally wrong here??

drawmack

ORDER BY col1,col2,col3,col4,.....

this will sort the list by column 1, then sort withing those by column two.

For example if you had this table

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS cars (
  ID BIGINT NOT NULL auto_increment,
  CarMake VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
  CarModle VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
  CarYear    CHAR(4) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (ID),
  INDEX CarMake (CarMake),
  INDEX CarModle (CarModle),
  INDEX CarYear (CarYear)
)

and it contained the data

1, Kia, Sephia, 1997
2, Kia, Rio, 2000
3, Kia, Sephia, 2000

then this

SELECT * FROM cars ORDER BY CarMake,CarModle,CarYear

It will return this
2, Kia, Rio, 2000
1, Kia, Sephia, 1997
3, Kia, Sephia, 2000

kenjiman

It seems like my sql class wich actually performs the sql_query returns a different array than if I would do an actual mysql_query()

my wrong.. sorry. =\

kenjiman

I get what you mean... I didnt think of that... =)

I guess I get an array looking like what I want selecting it from the database ...

then I only have to write a function to display the result with the right indentation..
that is:
1
1.1
1.2
2
2.1
2.2

etc...

thx for the tip =)