[RESOLVED] probs with nested repeat

tbuzz

<?php $nest = $row_Recordset4['teacher_name'];
if ($nest != $nest) { 
	$nest = $nest; ?>

<strong><?php echo $row_Recordset4['teacher_name']; ?></strong> <div class="tiny"><?php echo $row_Recordset4['group_name']; ?>

<?php } ?></td>

<td><?php echo $row_Recordset4['annum']; ?></td>
<td class="min"><?php echo $row_Recordset4['pupils']; ?></td>
<td><?php echo ROUND ($row_Recordset4['passes']); ?></td>
</tr>

and it displays:

Teacher
Group 1999 7 5
1998 8 7
1997 6 6

The problem is that a teacher can have more than 1 group. When the teachers are seperated by other teachers it displays ok but when the same teacher appears in succession it merges the teacher column so you get

Teacher
Group 1999 7 5
1998 8 7
1997 6 6
1999 7 7
1998 6 4
1997 6 6

I need $nest to take 'group_name' into account but I'm not sure how to do it.
any ideas?
thanks

ixalmida

As confused as I am by your if() statement (how could the $nest variable NOT equal itself??), I would normally tell people that you should sort and/or group your data before you get to the output stage.

In other words, if you are pulling data from SQL then the sorting and grouping should be done in the query. If you are working arrays then use the built-in array sorting statements.

"Logic first, then output" makes for clean code.

tbuzz

OK I made a small mistake in reproducing the code, it should read

<?php $last_nest = ""; ?>

<?php $nest = $row_Recordset4['teacher_name'];
if ($last_nest != $nest) { 
$last_nest = $nest; ?>

<tr>
<td><strong><?php echo $row_Recordset4['teacher_name']; ?></strong> <div class="tiny"><?php echo $row_Recordset4['group_name']; ?>

<?php } ?></td>

<td><?php echo $row_Recordset4['annum']; ?></td>
<td class="min"><?php echo $row_Recordset4['pupils']; ?></td>
<td><?php echo ROUND ($row_Recordset4['passes']); ?></td>
</tr>

I don't really understand how grouping in the query would allow me to show 1 teacher name for each set of years in the html table produced from the query?

I think I need to make $nest = teacher_name and group_name but I'm not sure if thats right or how to do it if it is

ixalmida

$query = "SELECT teacher_name, group_id FROM Teachers ".
  "GROUP BY teacher_name ORDER BY group_id";

Grouping the data afterwards by parsing an array is going to be slower and create more overhead than letting SQL do the work.

If you have to change the sort order or grouping interactively, then you should probably store the results in a Javascript array and let the client machine do the work.

If you are trying to page through your data, then you can use a query like this:

$index = "a";
if(isset($_GET['index']))
  $index = $_GET['index'];

$query = "SELECT teacher_name, group_id FROM Teachers WHERE teacher_name LIKE '".$index."%' ".
  "GROUP BY teacher_name ORDER BY group_id";

tbuzz

thanks for your input but this is really a display issue, I'm not trying to group the results I just wanted an empty cell rather than have the teacher name repeated for every year. The answer was really simple and I can't believe it took me so long to come to...
$nest = $row_Recordset4['teacher_name'];
becomes
$nest = $row_Recordset4['group_name'];

and it does exactly what I want