[PoliticalGateway]

Hello,

I have a probelm with a little php script I am trying to make...I have a table with "people" and each person has a "category". I simply want to make a list of categories, with each person who is in that category listed under it..

The code below does it "almost right"...it lists teh people under each category, but everytime it comes across a row with the same category it has already listed, it makes another list of people for the same category...(example output is listed below code....

Code:

<? //build and issue query
$sql ="SELECT category FROM authors WHERE approve ='1'";
$result =@mysql_query($sql,$connection)or die(mysql_error());


while ($row =mysql_fetch_array($result)){
		$category = $row['category'];
		print "<div align=\"center\"><font color=\"#FFFF00\"><strong>".$category."</strong></font></div>";
			$sqlx ="SELECT id_num,name,anony,othername FROM authors WHERE category='$category' and approve ='1'";
	$resultx =@mysql_query($sqlx,$connection)or die(mysql_error());
	while ($rowx =mysql_fetch_array($resultx)){
	$ids= $rowx['id_num'];
	$name = $rowx['name'];
	$othername = $rowx['othername'];
	$anony = $rowx['anony'];
	if ($anony == '1') {
	print "<a href=\"/main/columns/surf/readarticle.html?id_num=".$ids."&name=".$othername."\" class=\"pgnav\">".$othername."</a><br>"; } else {
	print "<a href=\"/main/columns/surf/readarticle.html?id_num=".$ids."&name=".$name."\" class=\"pgnav\">".$name."</a><br>";
	} 
	}print "<br>";
} ?>

Columnists

conservative <-- category
Joe Write
Herman the author

Liberal <-- category
Fred baylor
alice cooper

middle of the road<-- category
joe hanger

conservative <-- category (this is a repeated listing!!)
Joe Write
Herman the author

middle of the road
freddy

Green People<-- category
greg greener
mr green jeans


I have spent two days looking on mysql.com and a million tutorials, but since I do not even know the correct syntax for the needed code, it is hard to look it up......

Any help is appreciated...

[NeverMind]

I am not sure why you are using 2 while loops in your code , one is enough ..
but if you wouldn't mind I can write you a new one from scratch that does
exactly what you want but with out this while loop because I hate it
I will write another one using for loop .. is it ok for you ?

[PoliticalGateway]

Hey, thanks for the offer...

I figured it out, I simply added a "distinct" before the "category" in the first loop and it worked like a charm....

Can't believe I did it...

First application is always the best I guess, it should be rather boring from here out...


bob

[NeverMind]

glad to hear that
self-learning is the best way for learning