Question

I have a table with a name and type field. The type field contain the musical taste of the person in this way:

“Rock; Pop; Metal; Dance” (varchar)

I need to generate an excel list with this persons grouped by music taste.

For example:

1. One list with everybody in Rock; Metal; Dance
2. Another with everybody in Rock; Metal; Trance
3. Another with Rock (Only Rock)
4. and so on…

Each user can be only in one list.
I need this list to import in my newsletter software. Each type is a mailing list.

I need to perform all kind of combinations and then create the list when get results.
I was wondering which is the best and faster way to do this.
Can be trought a php script or even just SQL.

Ps.: I need this data from an old database created by someone else. I agree, is a terrible way to store.

Answer 1

It seems to me that you could run this simple query:

SELECT * FROM table_name ORDER BY music_taste_field

and then split the result up when the value of music_taste_field changes. You could do that manually or in PHP.

Also, as someone else has commented, that’s a terrible way to store music preferences.