Question

I’m trying to join multiple myqsl tables and then process resulting arrays using PHP but I’m having problems manipulating my data to get the groupings I’d like.

table.users
+—————
uid
name

table.profile_values
+———————–
fid
uid
category_value

table.profile_fields
+———————
fid
category_title

Here is my sql query:

SELECT users.name, profile_fields.category_title, profile_values.category_value FROM profile_values 
    INNER JOIN profile_fields
        ON profile_values.fid=profile_fields.fid
    INNER JOIN users
        ON users.uid=profile_values.uid
    ORDER BY users.name ASC

Using I while loop over fetch_array(), as expected, I get an array for each row number which looks something like:

Array (
    [0] => Array (
            [name] => Bob
            [category_title] => Occupation 
            [category_value] => IT
            ) 
    [1] => Array ( 
            [name] => Bob 
            [category_title] => Previous Experience 
            [category_value] => Very little.
            ) 
    ...
)

The output I’m actually looking to generate is:

Array( 
    [name] => array(
            [category_title 1] => value 1
            [category_title 2] => value 2
            ...
    )
    ....
)

I’ve spent the vast part of a day looking at various examples and haven’t been able to find one that helps me understand the best place to interject and group my data. I’ve seen examples using GROUP_CONCAT, which is similar to what I want, but I’d like to keep my data in arrays if possible.

Should I be using a nested foreach loops after I have my rows assigned to arrays, using a GROUP BY in my sql statement, or a combination of both?

Answer 1

Use php to create the array you want then. Maybe something like:

$result = mysql_query($sql) or die(mysql_error());
$newArray = array();
while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)){
    $newArray[$row['name']][$row['category_title']][] = $row['category_value'];
}