RE: [PHP] Sorting table columns dynamically on normalized MySQL tables [LONG]

[snip] Sorry that this has degenerated into a MySQL question rather than PHP. I was originally looking for how people handled it in PHP. --- Actually it didn't degenerate, it was a SQL question all along. Unless you had a desire to build sortable arrays in PHP this type of sort should always be done on the SQL side because it would be much more efficient. [/snip] I also should have said that it the joins that allow you to maintain normalized tables, for without joins you would be stuck with doing the magic in the programming language. Since most DB engines are optimized for handling joins leave that efficiency on that side of the equation.