Question

I have a data result being returned from my database with multiple rows. The problem I’m having is that I only need a single row for some items and the multiple rows for others and without doing multiple database queries for every item that is needed, I thought I’d rebuild the data array.

What I am ultimately after is to use each item in the array as a string. If the last two items, product and location have multiple rows then I need them returned as strings.

What would be the best way to handle this?

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [cid] => one line
            [model] => one line
            [mfgr] => one line
            [color] => one line
            [orderid] => one line
            [product] => many lines
            [location] => many lines
        )
    [1] => Array
        (
            .. repeats for as many rows as were found
        )
)

---

Let me rephrase this question. The array that you see above is the array that is produced from my foreach. Array key [0] holds all of the data from my result. Array key[1] simply repeats the data. I need single rows for columns 1-5. Columns 6 & 7 are where I need multiple rows, hence the repeating array keys.

If I had to rebuild this array that way I need, it would look something like this:

Array
(
    [single] => Array
        (
            [cid] => one line
            [model] => one line
            [mfgr] => one line
            [color] => one line
            [orderid] => one line

            [product] => Array
              (
                    [0] => many lines
                    [1] => many lines
              )
            [location] => Array
              (
                    [0] => many lines
                    [1] => many lines
              )
        )
)

Answer 1

The kind of grouping you want to do is the kind of thing databases do best.

Lookup the MySQL documentation for GROUP_CONCAT here.