Question

I’d like to SELECT rows from a database table and group them using PHP instead of SQL based on a parameter (in this case by item).

SQL:

Clothes table

 id  item     owner
 1   shoes     joe 
 2   pants     joe
 3   hat       joe
 4   pants     joe
 5   hat       tom

SELECT * from Clothes where owner='joe'

 1   shoes     joe 
 2   pants     joe
 3   hat       joe
 4   pants     joe

Here’s how I’d like the results to look after using PHP instead of SQL’s GROUP BY item

PHP :

 1   shoes     joe 
 2   pants     joe   //count 2
 3   hat       joe

I’m sure there is a PHP array function for this I’m just not familiar, thoughts?

Answer 1

The easiest way is to exploit the uniqueness of array keys:

$grouped = array();

while ($row = $db->fetchResult()) {  // or however you get your data
    if (isset($grouped[$row['item']])) {
        $grouped[$row['item']]['count']++;
    } else {
        $grouped[$row['item']] = $row + array('count' => 1);
    }
}