displaying and "sorting" loops

[severndigital]

i am currently running a while loop on a database.

while($show_a = mysql_fetch_array($show_approval)){

		$s_id 		=	$show_a['userid'];
		$s_type		=	$show_a['type'];
		$s_dateleave    =	$show_a['dateleave'];
		$s_datereturn   =	$show_a['datereturn'];
		$s_timeleave    =	$show_a['timeleave'];
		$s_timereturn   =	$show_a['timereturn'];
		$s_reason	=	$show_a['reason'];
		$s_approval	=	$show_a['approved'];
}

this works fine except for one thing. i would like to only display the $s_id variable only once, each time it changes.

for example.

userid A

the list of
things would
show up
here.

userid B

the list of
things for this
userid would show up
here.

and so on. with the loop i have currently i get the userid with each query.
do i need to switch to a different kind of loop to get what i am looking for?

thanks in advance.
chris

[tomhath]

Store the id in another variable so you can compare it every time through the while loop.

$current_id = '';
while($show_a = mysql_fetch_array($show_approval)){

		$s_id 		=	$show_a['userid'];
		...
		if ($s_id <> $current_id) { 
		    // display the id
		}
		...
		$current_id = $s_id;
}