Question

I am having trouble getting well formatted results from my mysql query.

Here is the database:

customers table 
id  name
1   Tim
2   Lauren
3   Prada

tanks table
id  c_id    location
1   1   Living Room
2   2   Living Room
3   2   Kitchen
4   3   Bedroom
5   3   Hallway

fish table
id  t_id    color
1   1   red
2   1   blue
3   2   white
4   2   green
5   2   black
6   3   red
7   3   orange
8   4   white
9   4   blue
10  5   black

Here is my query:

SELECT * FROM customers
LEFT JOIN tanks ON (tanks.c_id = customers.id)
LEFT JOIN fish ON (fish.t_id = tanks.id)
GROUP BY customers.id, tanks.id;

Here is the result that I am getting:

id  name    id  c_id    location    id  t_id    color
1   Tim 1   1   Living Room 1   1   red
2   Lauren  2   2   Living Room 3   2   white
2   Lauren  3   2   Kitchen 6   3   red
3   Prada   4   3   Bedroom 8   4   white
3   Prada   5   3   Hallway 10  5   black

Here is the format that I am trying to get:

  [0] => Array
    (
      [customers] => Array
        (
          [0] => Array
            (
              [id] => 2
              [title] => Lauren
              [tanks] => Array
                (
                  [0] => Array
                    (
                      [id] => 2
                      [location] => Living Room
                      [fish] => Array
                        (
                          [0] => Array
                            (
                              [id] => 3
                              [color] => white
                            )
                          [1] => Array
                            (
                              [id] => 4
                              [color] => green
                            )
                          [2] => Array
                            (
                              [id] => 5
                              [color] => black
                            )
                        )
                      )
                    [1] => Array
                      (
                        [id] => 3
                        [location] => Kitchen
                        [fish] => Array
                          (
                            [0] => Array
                              (
                                [id] => 6
                                [color] => red
                              )
                            [1] => Array
                              (
                                [id] => 7
                                [color] => orange
                              )
                          )
                      )
                )
            )
        )
    )

Can I get the desired result from one query or do I need to do multiple queries and then join them together in PHP?

Any help would be appreciated!

Answer 1

You can’t get this output directly from mysql because it always returns row based outputs. Bu after you get the result, you can convert the row-type array to your desired array with a bridge method.