Question

I am not able to get my head around it.

I have this database table:

category_id
category_name
steps_description

Now I want to show in format like this

Catgeory 1
Then all steps under it

Catgory2
then all steps under it

Can I do it with one mysql query?

Please show me how to loop through with PHP.

EDIT:
I have got the data in object format i.e. collection of objects

I want the result like:

for all categories {

<table><tr><th>Catgory Name </th></tr>
<tr> <td>Step1 </td> </tr>
<tr> <td>Step2 </td> </tr>
<tr> <td>Step3 </td> </tr>
</table>
}

Something like that but with one query.

Answer 1

I’m not sure if I exactly know what you mean, but I will try anyway… .
I assume, you have many categoriy names within the table which aren’t unique. And you have many steps for each of them. Now you want to make a table for every category.
If this is right, you can try something like this:

    $db = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=testdb;charset=UTF-8', 'username', 'password', array(PDO::ATTR_EMULATE_PREPARES => false, PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE => PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION));
    $stmt = $db->query("SELECT * FROM `table`");

    $arr_data = array();
    while($row = $stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
        $arr_data[$row['category_name']][] = $row['steps_description'];
    }
    foreach ($arr_data as $cat) {
        foreach ($cat as $step) {
            $str_steps .= '<tr><td>'.$step.'</td></tr>';
        }
        echo '<table>'.$str_steps.'</table>';
        $str_steps = '';
    }