Grouping results by category

[1042]

Hello all,

i have this code that shows the department categories in a 4 column format, my problem is how do i insert the names of the people that belong to that category to be shown under the category name? i have 2 tables, one is the department categories and the other one is users, under users there is a field that is called staff_department..here is the code that shows the categories only;

$sqlCat   = MySQL_Query("SELECT dep_name FROM staff_departments ORDER BY dep_name");
$columns  = 4;
$numRows     = MySQL_Num_Rows ($sqlCat);
$rows = ceil($numRows / $columns);

while($category = MySQL_Fetch_Array($sqlCat)) {
  $cat[] = $category['dep_name'];
}
echo '<br><br>'.
     '<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" align="center" width="100%" border="1">';
  for($i = 0; $i < $rows; $i++) {
    echo '<tr>';
    for($j = 0; $j < $columns; $j++) {
      if(isset($cat[$i + ($j * $rows)])) {
        echo '<td><strong>'. $cat[$i + ($j * $rows)] . '</strong></td>';
      }
    }
    echo '</tr>';
  }
echo '</table>';

i guess im missing a query to show the names under the category example SELECT * FROM users WHERE staff_department = '$sqlCat [dep_name]' but where do i do this?

thanks to all in advance 🙂

[leatherback]

How about:
"SELECT * FROM staff
left join staff_departments on staff_departments_id = staff.deparment ORDER BY dep_name";

then, during the retrieval of data you check whether the $current_dep == $row['dep_name'] to decide whether you would like to show a new dep. name?