Question

I have a query which returns some results, and then I’m using a while loop to output the results.

The problem I’m having is that I want to return the ‘question’ before the while loop so that it doesn’t display a number of times inside the loop.

I have the following code:

$query  = "SELECT * FROM polls LEFT JOIN pollanswers ON polls.pollID = pollanswers.pollID WHERE polls.pollID = 1 ORDER By pollAnswerListing ASC";
$result = mysql_query($query);

echo '<p>Question</p>';
echo '<form action="#" class="poll-form">';
echo '  <p class="error"></p>';
echo '  <fieldset>';

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_ASSOC)) {
    echo '<div class="row">';
    echo '<input type="radio" name="poll" id="'.$row["pollAnswerID"].'" class="radio" value="'.$row["pollAnswerID"].'" /><label for="'.$row["pollAnswerID"].'">'.$row["pollAnswerValue"].'</label>';
    echo '</div>';
}

echo '  </fieldset>';
echo '</form>';

As you can see the loop is working perfectly, but how do I output the question just once from the same SQL statement BEFORE outputting the loop?

Answer 1

You can fetch one row to display your question (assuming you have the same question value for multiple rows), then use mysql_data_seek() to rewind the result resource back to the first record to start your loop:

// Retrieve the first row...
$first_row = mysql_fecth_array($result, MYSQL_ASSOC);

// Output your question however you need to...
echo "whatever...";

// Then rewind the result back to zero
mysql_data_seek($result, 0);

// Proceed with the rest of your while loop
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_ASSOC)) {
    echo '<div class="row">';
    echo '<input type="radio" name="poll" id="'.$row["pollAnswerID"].'" class="radio" value="'.$row["pollAnswerID"].'" /><label for="'.$row["pollAnswerID"].'">'.$row["pollAnswerValue"].'</label>';
    echo '</div>';
}