Re: displaying repetitive results

Hi, Thursday, November 11, 2004, 4:04:27 AM, you wrote: CL> Given a database query thats returns results from a linking (or xref) CL> table which includes repetition because of the joins: CL> +----+--------------------------+----------+ CL> | id | title | subject | CL> +----+--------------------------+----------+ CL> | 1 | Collected Poems of Keats | poetry | CL> | 2 | Spy High | suspense | CL> | 3 | Sci Fi Spies | suspense | CL> | 3 | Sci Fi Spies | sci-fi | CL> +----+--------------------------+----------+ CL> What is the best way to go about displaying this for the user so that CL> the record looks "complete": CL> ID: 3 CL> title: Sci Fi Spies CL> Subjects: suspense, scifi CL> or something similar? Or is there some better way to query? It's also CL> a problem in terms of limiting the query because if I limit the query CL> to 10 records I might be chopping off some subjects for the last book? CL> The query and tables are simple: CL> select books.id, books.title, subjects.subject CL> from books, subjects, books_subjects CL> where books_subjects.bid = books.id CL> and books_subjects.sid = subjects.id CL> BOOKS CL> 1. collected poems of keats CL> 2. spy high CL> 3. sci-fi spies CL> SUBJECTS: CL> 1. poetry CL> 2. suspense CL> 3. sci-fi CL> 4. horror CL> 5. mystery CL> BOOKS_SUBJECTS CL> bid sid CL> 1 1 CL> 2 2 CL> 3 2 CL> 3 3 CL> c when you read the rows create an array of subjects like this (assuming mysql) while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result){ $list[$row['title']]['subjects'][] = $row['subject']; } //Then you can loop through $list and implode the subjects foreach ($list as $title=>$subjects){ $subject_list = implode(',',$subjects); echo "<tr><td>$title</td><td>$subject_list</td></tr>"; } -- regards, Tom