Setting Up Categories

[CraniumDesigns]

Hey Guys. New to PHPB. I'm setting a up a site to keep track of all past and present members of the chapter of the frat I am in. I have a column in my mysql DB called "class" to designate their pledge class. I want to set up a page that automatically creates a listing of each class's members without having to set up the categories themselves one by one.

So say I have three pledge classes, MT, BB, and RJH.

Say I have 3 people in each of those classes.

I want it to be displayed dynamically like this.

MT
person 1
person 2
person 3

BB
person 1
person 2
person 3

RJH
person 1
person 2
person 3

I want it to detect all the different classes in that column and arrange them like that. How do I do this in PHP? I know how to select all of members where their pledge class equals a specific name (SELECT class FROM roster WHERE class = "MT"), but how do i do it dynamically? PLEASE HELP THE N00B!

[barand]

$sql = "SELECT class, name FROM roster ORDER BY class, name";
$res = mysql_query($sql);

$lastClass = "";

while (list($class, $name) = mysql_fetch_row($res)) {

 if ($class != lastClass) echo "<b>$class</b><br>";
 echo "$name<br>";
 $lastClass = $class;
}

hth

[CraniumDesigns]

thanks a lot. can you explain how it works? i am not familiar with the list command. i would like to understand it so i dont have to ask questions in the future. thanks a lot.

[CraniumDesigns]

please still explain it. i DID try it and got this:

BB
Arlynne
MT
Kristy
MT
Phili
MT
Steve
RJH
Tryphena
SC
Herman
VRH
Kent

I don't want duplicates of the classes, so the people in 3 people in MT should be under MT, not 1 person per class.

[barand]

Oops! missed $ from front of lastclass

Amend this line to

if ($class != $lastClass) echo "<b>$class</b><br>";

[man]list[/man] takes the elements from an array and puts them in the variables in the list.

list($a , $b) = $mysql_fetch_row($res);

is equivalent to

$row = $mysql_fetch_row($res);
$a = $row[0];
$b = $row[1];

it loops thru the rows of the result. If the class in a row is not equal to the previous row's class then if outputs the class heading.

[CraniumDesigns]

nevermind. i already figured it out several hours ago. much easier than that too. ill post what i did when i'm sober. haha.