formatting mysql data for ouptut into a table

Question

Following on from a question earlier today this answer was given to read the data into an array and separate it to print vehicle type and then some data for each vehicle.

<?php
$sql = "SELECT * FROM apparatus ORDER BY vehicleType";
$getSQL = mysql_query($sql);
// transform the result set:
$data = array();
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($getSQL)) {
$data[$row['vehicleType']][] = $row;    
}
?>
<?php foreach ($data as $type => $rows): ?>
<h2><?php echo $type?></h2>
<ul>
  <?php foreach ($rows as $vehicleData):?>
    <li><?php echo $vehicleData['name'];?></li>
  <?php endforeach ?>
  </ul>
<?php endforeach ?>

This is almost perfect for what I want to do but I need to print out two columns from the database ie ford and mondeo before going into the second foreach loop. I've tried print $rows['model'] and all the other combinations I can think of but that doesn't work. Any help much appreciated

Answer 1

I'm a bit confused by your question but the SELECT * in the SQL statement means that every column from the database should be present as a key=>value pair in the $row array. So if you needed another "column," output here into an HTML list element <li>, you just echo (note: not "print") that column name as an array key. So if you needed the type of the car column found in a column with the name "model" you'd do this:

<?php
$sql = "SELECT * FROM apparatus ORDER BY vehicleType";
$getSQL = mysql_query($sql);
// transform the result set:
$data = array();
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($getSQL)) {
$data[$row['vehicleType']][] = $row;    
}
?>
<?php foreach ($data as $type => $rows): ?>
<h2><?php echo $type?></h2>
<ul>
  <?php foreach ($rows as $vehicleData):?>
    <li><?php echo $vehicleData['name'];?></li>
    <li><?php echo $vehicleData['model'];?></li>
  <?php endforeach ?>
  </ul>
<?php endforeach ?>

EDIT: I'm still unclear on your question, but if every car has the same vehicleType, and you're just looking to grab that once before looping through all the results, I'm guessing this will do it:

<?php
// Set up a SQL query to grab one row
$query_to_grab_only_vehicle_type = "SELECT vehicleType FROM apparatus WHERE 1 LIMIT 0,1";
// Fetch that row and turn it into an array
$vehicle_type_array = mysql_fetch_array(mysql_query($query_to_grab_only_vehicle_type));
// Initialize a variable with the array value that came from the vehicleType column
$vehicle_type = $vehicle_type_array['vehicleType'];
// You could uncomment and use the following to echo out the variable
// echo "Vehicle type: $vehicle_type";

$sql = "SELECT * FROM apparatus ORDER BY vehicleType";
$getSQL = mysql_query($sql);
// transform the result set:
$data = array();
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($getSQL)) {
$data[$row['vehicleType']][] = $row;    
}
?>
<?php foreach ($data as $type => $rows): ?>
<h2><?php echo $type?></h2>
<ul>
  <?php foreach ($rows as $vehicleData):?>
    <li><?php echo $vehicleData['name'];?></li>
    <li><?php echo $vehicleData['model'];?></li>
  <?php endforeach ?>
  </ul>
<?php endforeach ?>