Question

I can semi-conceptually get this, but I can’t wrap my head around the right way to do it.

Specifically, an object that needs to do the following…

class Question {
  var $text;
  var $filters = array();
  var $banners = arrya(); //But this has to be within $filter somehow...
  ... //all getter and setter functions
}

Now I am going to query a database and get a bunch of data returned, say 4 columns.

QuestionText | Filter | Banner | Value

I want to end up with an object that looks like….

Object
  Questions
   ->Question 1
     ->Text = Question One
     ->Filters
        ->Filter1
           ->Name = Ontario
           Banners
             Banner 1
              ->Name = Male
              ->Value = 20
             Banner 2
              ->Name = Famales
              ->Value = 20
        ->Filter2
           ->Name = Quebec
           Banners
           Banners
             Banner 1
              ->Name = Male
              ->Value = 20
             Banner 2
              ->Name = Famales
              ->Value = 20
   ->Question 2
     ->Text = Question Two
     ->Filters
     ......
     .....
     ....
     ...

Because I can only read from the database row by row, I need to find a way to add each new banner and value inside the Question / Filter combination. Eventually I want to spit it out as a table where each banner is a column.

Answer 1

Firstly, you will need three classes

class Question {
   var $text;
   var $filters;
}

class Filter {
   var $name;
   var $banners;
}

class Banner {
   var $name;
   var $value;
}

Then you would start off by creating your questions and adding the filters and banners to them like so:

$questions = array();
$x = 0;
$result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM `questions`");
while ($obj = mysql_fetch_object($result)) {
    $questions[$x] = new Question();
    $questions[$x]->text = $obj->text;
    $result2 = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM `filters` WHERE `question` = {$obj->id}");
    $questions[$x]->filters = array();
    $y = 0;
    while ($obj2 = mysql_fetch_object($result2)) {
        $questions[$x]->filters[$y] = new Filter();
        ...
        // and so on
        ...
        $y++;
    }
    $x++;
}

Hope that helps.