Don't know what to call this...

Anon

I'm doing a <Select><Option> thingy and I want to get the "options" from a MySQL database, however, what if I have multiple of the same "options". How can I filter this out?

To make it more clear my database structure is like this:

ID Song Type Blah...
1 SA Rap ....
2 SB Rap ....
3 SC Rock ....

And I want to put a form together. To make it easy I want to just grab various options from the table and filter out the ones I already have.

So Rap & Rock will appear once, instead of Rap twice and Rock once.

I know I could do another Table keeping track of "Types" and do it like that, but, I'm lazy and besides that it would easier to do it like this. [Preventing having to update multiple tables at once upon submission (like if a new "Type" needs to be added).]

Hope you can help.

Anon

You could do a distinct select :

SELECT DISTINCT type FROM table (WHERE ...)

This way you only get unique type.

I hope this is what you need.

Peter

Anon

Sounds like the entries are already distinct though...

if the actual field entries are "SB Rap" and "SC Rap" then they're distinct and both will be output.

Anon

Yep sorry didn't see it.

You need to do a DISTINCT on a part of the field using stringfunctions in MySQL.

SELECT DISTINCT SUBSTRING(......)

You can look this up in the excellent on line manual at www.mysql.com

These boys and girls do a perfect job on the manual. So take a look.

Anon

Great, thanks. That's exactly what I needed. =)