Question

Say I had a table with :

First      | Last
-------------------
Bob          Dylan
Ashley       Scott
Lol Cats
black cake

It would order them but do

A:
  Ashley Scott
B:
  Bob Dylan
  Black Cake
L:
  lol cats

I know how to list by abc from MySql. but i want to have it put the letter before each group of names. So i can make a nice looking interface, and at the top of the page have A B C D letters at the top that went contacts#letterL

I know how to do the #links in a url. Its just the div Id. I know how to grab from MySql. The part i’m not sure on is echoing the letter before the group of names that start with that letter.

I was thinking of getting the first letter of the name of saving it in a variable.

if ($lastletter == $currentleter) {
  echo name
} else {
  $lastletter = $currentleter;
  echo '<div id="Letter ' . $currentleter .  '" class="letterheader">' . $currentleter . '</div>';
}

Not sure if this idea would be a efficient idea. Would this be the right away of doing this?

Answer 1

Untested code but something like this should work:

$currentleter = substr($name , 0 , 1);
if ($lastletter != $currentleter){
    echo '<div id="Letter' . $currentleter .  '" class="letterheader">' . $currentleter . '</div>';
    $lastletter = $currentleter;
}

echo $name;