[RESOLVED] How to do two sorts with one query

[mrgrammar]

I have a categories table with 4 fields: id, category, condition, description.
Each category has a corresponding condition and only one condition so they are in the same table.

I need to create two lists from this table each to be used in a different place. In one place I need a list of categories ordered alphabetically by category. In another place I need a list of conditions ordered alphabetically by condition.

Getting the array of data by one or the other field is simple:

Select from cats order by category or
Select from cats order by condition

I'd like to create both lists without doing two queries. How can I make that happen?

[Bonesnap]

You could use the UNION keyword but that will return it as one result set, and I'm not sure that's what you want.

What's wrong with performing two separate queries?

[NogDog]

If they are going to be used as two distinct lists, I'd probably just keep them separate. You could do something like this:

select * from cats order by category, condition

...but then you would have to do a bit of PHP finagling with arrays or such to get the desired items into their separate arrays (i.e. lists), which might well be more costly than just doing two separate queries.

[mrgrammar]

Thanks. I did it with two queries and it works quite nicely. I am trying to learn to write as efficient code as possible. I appreciate the responses.